Pumps on the seven seas

- Ships offer good business opportunities for Grundfos. We have had a presence in this market for the past 20 years, but we are not realising the full potential yet, Kim Kirkegaard, Business Development Manager at Grundfos Industry says.

Grundfos is slowly moving further into the market for pumps for the marine industry. And with good reason: Grundfos has a lot of the tools and capabilities that the industry requests. Ronald Rasmussen, plant supervisor at Clipper-Group explains:

- We have decided to work with Grundfos because they are capable of meeting our needs. We are managing a large fleet and operate all over the world. It is important to us to be able to have repair work undertaken and get spare parts no matter where we are in the world.

Ships are BIG business

The marine market offers great potential. The market can be divided into two broad categories when talking about pump sales: The OEM market and the market for new developments.

Grundfos has been active on the OEM market for a number of years, where a wide product range has enabled the company to offer solutions that are not available from competitors. We are, however, only beginning to get established in the market for new developments.

- This market is attractive to us because it is a high-volume market. For example, every order for a ship involves a turnover within the 150,000-300,000 dollar range. Also, ships are often ordered in quantities of four to ten at a time, says Kim Kirkegaard.

Muscles to pave the way

New products are imperative in Grundfos’ attempt to establish itself in the market for new developments, and new products like the VLS pump as well as collaboration agreements with suppliers of products that are not normally part of the portfolio are paving the way.

- But we can also use some of our existing competences known from for instance the OEM market in establishing us. For instance our experience in energy-efficient solutions, where we are thinking of offering pump audits for ships, says Kim Kirkegaard.

At present Grundfos’ sale of products to the marine industry is worth millions of euros annually, but this amount is expected to increase up to tenfold when and if the company gets wind in the sails.