Providing the Ultimate Solution
The company exists of an engineering department, factory, sales and purchase department all in one building.
To ensure success, the company focuses on its specialism: machinery for metal pipe finishing, including pipe or tube sawing, cutting, bending, grooving of bevelling. Additionally offering custom made solutions based on its standard machine portfolio, which Copier Bevelmachines counts as a main reason for its continued success, the company markets its products through extensive online research and the regular attendance of international exhibitions. Predominantly focusing on the oil and gas industry, pipe fabrication shops, manufacturers of offshore structures and pipeline construction companies, Copier Bevelmachines sell worldwide. Although based in the Netherlands, only around 5 percent of sales are made there each year. In addition to its main markets, the company also works with oil and gas related regions worldwide through agents and resellers, with the majority of its customers based in the construction of boilers, pressure vessels and heat exchangers, but also in the fabrication of oil and gas pipelines or related pipe fabrication companies.
Innovation is Key
Striving to continue being the one-stop-shop supplier for all its customers’ needs regarding metal pipe finishing, including pipe bevelling, cutting, sawing, deburring, facing, grooving or bending, Copier Bevelmachines deems it incredibly important to remain innovative.
‘It is not only important to our success that we keep up-to-date with the latest technology on the market, but also that we see what field the customer is looking at for a solution at this moment,’ Joost Bertels, the company’s Sales and Marketing Representative, explained. ‘It is important to stay up to date, visit customers often, go to exhibitions: just staying continuously in touch with the end users in the factories. We not only speak to the production manager but also to the machine operators. Also, we see that it motivates all of our employees when they are tasked with coming up with a solution that is the key to the requirement of the customer. It is also a challenge for our engineers to find the best possible solution for the customer that is within their budget.’
The Benefits of CNC Controlled Pipe Beveling machines from Copier
There are a number of advantages that the CNC controlled pipe bevel machine carry, the first being that all other bevel machines only have axial feeding. ‘The CNC controlled bevel machine has radial and axial feeding; therefore, the wall thickness of the pipe is not a issue anymore, the wall thickness is unlimited,’ Bertels began. ‘Compared to most other bevel machines, you don’t need to manually change the tool holders by hand any more. Everything is controlled through the LCD touch screen, even the tool holders.’ Furthermore, multiple angles can be made by the CNC machine once all angles are pre-set in the system using the LCD touchscreen: bevels can be easily repeated over and over again.
The CNC bevelmachine warns the operator when a cutting bit is worn out. Even cutting of a part of the end of the pipe is possible with this bevelmachine. This CNC bevelmachine with all these capabilities will give an very competitive edge compared to the competition on stationary pipe beveling.
Of course, in addition to the advantages of CNC machines, Copier Bevelmachines also offers the added benefit of custom made products, which I asked Bertels about. ‘The basic idea is to offer the customer one solution that meets their requirement completely,’ he explained. ‘When the machinery that we have in our standard portfolio cannot do the job, we investigate the possibility of offering a machine that is partly custom made based on our standard machine, or offering a machine that is one of a kind. If the solution is to produce a model that is one of a kind, we start from scratch and focus solely on meeting the requirement at hand.’ Having produced machines like these for a long period of time now, the company is experienced with the process of production: ‘With the experience we have, we now know from an early stage roughly how many weeks or months each machine will take from purchase order to installation’ (Bertels).
Moving Forward
Currently, the industrial companies in the EU are continuing to progress, which is good news for Copier Bevelmachines. Germany remains the country where the company’s sales are highest; however, Bertels believes that the result of present low oil prices will reflect on the investments being made internationally, for example at pipe mill manufacturers. Overall, the last 12 months have been extremely lucrative for Copier Bevelmachines, and it recognises that most industrial companies in Europe are looking to invest again in new technology.
In light of this potential investment, Copier Bevelmachines is now adding new machines to its portfolio, which will incur development costs for the company. They are now manufacturing 24 inch CNC bevelmachine that can do 6” to 24 inch beveling, the machine has radial and axial feeding and can make all complex machining preparations.
This machines is copying the inside of the pipe in order to make J-bevels or so called Jpreps.
The company is moving more into the market of metal pipe sawing and cutting. ‘We experienced that cutting and sawing is always related to pipe bevelling; therefore we want to offer cutting and sawing solutions for the metal pipe. In the end, we want to offer all metal pipe machining solutions to our customers’ (Bertels). ‘All machines we add to our portfolio are in the field of metal pipe finishing. ‘Last year we started with stationary and portable tube bending machines for the range up to 90 mm, this is a expansion of the portfolio and makes the machinery offer wider, Bertels said.
The First Sawing Machine
Ever the innovator, the company has recently been working on its new sawing machine. Focusing on its experience, and informing the customer that it is able to cut pipes fast and accurately, Copier Bevelmachines has now sold the first sawing machine from conceptual design, which means that the actual saw has not even be manufactured yet. This offers the company the prime advantage of having its development costs already being paid for and it can now continue to engineer and develop the final product.
‘With our sawing and cutting solutions, we focus on heavy duty sawing and cutting, for example for big diameter pipes, but also on strong and tough materials like stainless steel pipes, duplex and super duplex pipes. This might be a niche market for most other manufacturers, but here we create our specialism and experience’ (Bertels). With new, exciting ventures in the pipeline such as this, Copier Bevelmachines’ success shows no sign of stopping.