Pulsafeeder Wins 2007 North American Positive Displacement Pumps Excellence in Product & Customer Service Innovation of the Year Award
December 21, 2007
The recipient of the 2007 Frost & Sullivan Product and Customer Service Innovation Award in the North American positive displacement pumps markets is Pulsafeeder, Inc., part of IDEX Corporation. Pulsafeeder is a brand recognized for its superior ability in providing innovative pumping solutions along with application expertise that drive customer value in the space. The company has consistently provided leadership in exceptional customer service to ensure highest meantime between failure and better life cycle cost savings to its customers.
Market Pointer
The North American positive displacement pumps market in a maturity stage and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.9 percent during 2007-2013. Some of the major pump types include rotary, reciprocating and peristaltic. Some of the critical challenges include selective technology innovation in terms of increasing efficiency and shift of end-user industries to low cost manufacturing economies. The market is highly fragmented and characterized by large corporations who offer a comprehensive product range and total solutions to their end users. However, the scope for growth depends on the ability of manufacturers to identify emerging areas of growth in the market. The key end-user industries include chemical processing, oil and gas, water and wastewater, food and beverage, construction, and marine. The end-users are also looking forward to manufacturers providing them energy saving solutions and technology improvements. The major competitive factors within the market are maintaining exemplary customer service and delivery of product, brand image, and price to performance ratio.
Persistent competition and market maturity in the positive displacement (PD) pumps market has forced manufacturers to introduce innovative products to drive process efficiency to new levels. Pulsafeeder has been in the forefront to meet customer requirements by conceiving innovative designs. Pulsafeeder’s Eclipse series, a line non-metallic and sealless gear pump has received enormous success since its launch in 2006. The Eclipse has proved to be a major breakthrough in product development in the PD pumps market. Pulsafeeder’s superior design capabilities offer simplicity in operation and maintenance. A case of point is a customer in the power industry; who was utilizing a very well known centrifugal pump with a double mechanical seal made of zirconium to pump hydrochloric acid. The customer was challenged with high costs as the seal had to be replaced every six months along with oil. Apart from high maintenance costs, the customer witnessed low efficiency levels as the pump was fitted with a 20 HP (horse power) motor giving a flow rate of only 25 gallons per minute against the targeted of 70 gallons a minute. Having deployed the Eclipse range of pumps since a year and half, the customer witnessed significant savings on maintenance costs with its sealless design and oil free operation. In addition, the customer also witnessed substantial reductions in its energy costs as the pump was fitted with a 3.25 HP motor resulting in higher efficiency. The commitment shown by Pulsafeeder to provide technically superior products that are cost effective has been widely appreciated by customers.
Customers have always looked at Pulsafeeder as a provider of highly innovative solutions and excellent products along with extraordinary customer support. The company succeeds in furnishing high-quality, accurate, reliable, efficient and innovative products that meet customers changing needs. In their efforts to continuously monitor customer feedback, Pulsafeeder interacts with its customers and other end-users by conducting voice of customer (VOC) workshops. This allows Pulsafeeder to fully understand industry requirements, not only from a customer’s standpoint but also from the distributors’ standpoint. The company strongly believes in interacting with the customer directly in order to obtain a true understanding of their requirements and ensuring that it does not function merely as a point of sale, but continues to aid customers through aftermarket and support services. In addition, by being responsive it has enhanced their decision making capability to come up with innovative products and penetrate newer markets to expand its existing customer base. Pulsafeeder’s dedicated focus towards providing increased value to customers is a key differentiator amongst its peer competitors.
Further, Pulsafeeder has continued to invest time and resources in technological developments and it has developed the “OMNI” series” diaphragm metering pumps. One key differentiator is that the pump type is grease lubricated whereas other pumps types are oil lubricated; this feature might be minor but has resulted in significant savings on the maintenance costs for customers. In addition, its compact and simple construction has helped perform at high efficiency levels in challenging chemical dosing applications and has proved to be a reliable alternative for customers in other industrial applications. Pulsafeeder takes pride in its pumps range which is fully complaint to the latest regulations with regards to emission control and standards. A note worthy achievement is that 90.0 percent of its pump types are sealless, which will result in significant cost savings for customers on maintenance. This clearly demonstrates the company’s initiative to continuously invest in their research and development program to produce extraordinarily high-quality and reliable products using the latest manufacturing techniques and equipment.
Chart below highlights Pulsafeeder's value proposition in the North American Positive Displacement Pumps Market.
In its efforts to consistently provide customers value added support services, Pulsafeeder’s KOP (Keep on Pumping) kit is another flagship product that is simple to use and contain the required spare parts for each product type. The KOP kit ensures highest level of efficiency and smooth operation of the equipment. Customers enjoys the flexibility of buying these kits either as a packaged deal along with the equipment or at as a stand alone product. Besides having extraordinary products, Pulsafeeder offers a warranty that exemplifies how well their products are produced. Customers trust Pulsafeeder as manufacturer who provides complete supports services right from the purchase, installation and the maintenance of the pump during its life cycle. Thus, Pulsafeeder rarely has their products returned generating an incredible rate of return that is less than one tenth of a percent.
Pulsafeeder with its customer centric approach of proving excellent services support, reliable products, and unbeatable warranties has been able to instill confidence in its customer’s as being a true world class manufacturer. In addition, it has also enabled the company to build long-term competitiveness, create growth potential and increase its presence based on strong local networks. In recognition of the accomplishments, Frost & Sullivan is proud to present Pulsafeeder, Inc. with the 2007 Excellence in Product and Customer Innovation of the Year Award for the North American positive displacement pumps markets.
