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Good progress at Weir’s Chinese Oil & Gas joint venture
After one year of operation, the joint venture set up with Shengli Highland
in late 2010 is progressing well. Weir SPM has supported the development of the Chinese operation, hosting two rounds of training for personnel from Weir Highland in 2011. In February 2011, Rob Zhang, the Operations Manager and John Jiang, the Senior Engineer of Weir Highland, visited Fort Worth, Texas to learn the operating systems, pump assembly, layout and process flow of the Weir SPM plant. The training was beneficial, with the new Weir Highland plant layout set up and configured with support and supervision from Weir SPM.
In August 2011 more training
was provided for the joint venture, primarily focused on the specific pump manufacturing and quality processes - machining, welding, pump assembly, pump testing and pump repair. All Weir SPM pump operations and service centre personnel offered their full support to their Chinese colleagues. The comprehensive training allowed the three Chinese engineers
Left to right - Leo Wang, Yan Wu, Jerry Jiang, Scott Skurvalsvold and Fred Xu at the Shengli Highland facility
to grasp not only the general outlines of pump manufacture, but to also understand the detailed engineering. Production commenced at Weir Highland
in November 2011 with the assembly of the TWS 600S and QWS 2500 SD pumps. Full production in China is expected to begin in early 2012.
Control valves: two years of rapid growth
December 2011 marked the end of a two year project to develop
and re-introduce the control valve product line to significantly increase sales volumes. The project was initiated during
an internal Weir Power & Industrial conference at the end of 2009 when the existing control valve product brand was identified as having the potential for growth – given the right investment. In March 2010, the strategic initiative was given the go-ahead. The strategy was built on three key objectives: 1) develop sales at the UK plant in Elland; 2) enter a joint venture with the existing licensee (HIM Tech) in South Korea and; 3) develop a country- specific strategy and sales structure for the Chinese market. To achieve the first objective, a new
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sales organisation was put into place led by Frank Hussaarts, Global Marketing and Sales Director, which focused on product sales to targeted customers. This was complemented by global sourcing initiatives and the development of a new supply chain structure to produce a competitive product. HIM Tech had been a Weir licensee
for approximately ten years producing control valve products in South Korea. In 2011 a joint venture agreement was signed between HH Cho (the owner of HIM Tech) and Weir to form Weir International. At the end of 2011, a record number of orders for the global supply of control valve products – largely in the power and oil and gas industries – were received from a number of Korean EPCs. Most notably, a multi-million pound order for the supply of control valves
for the Shin Ulchin nuclear power plant in Korea was secured through a collaborative effort among the valve facilities in the UK, USA and South Korea.
In support of the China growth
strategy, an agreement was signed with Loftyman Engineering at the beginning of the year to introduce eight control and choke valve sales offices throughout China with manufacturing and aftermarket support provided from a dedicated facility at Weir Power & Industrial’s existing Suzhou plant. The two-year rapid growth plan has achieved significant sales increases with 2011 input figures reflecting substantial increases on 2010 input. Strong foundations for driving continual growth over the next five years have been put in place.
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