VAF believe that to compete to your full potential you must be a leader in innovation.  There philosophy is to develop products and techniques which lead to cost savings, wider functionality and optimal reliability.  To this end VAF invests 8% of it’s turnover in research and development to fund the process of developing new products and the further development of existing instruments.  This policy of continuous development does not involve products but also the manufacturing process.  The latest innovation from VAF has been the introduction of a robot controller manufacturing facility.

Robots have been used in the automotive industry for many years.  Flowmeters are complicated devices and require critical machining such as boring, milling and drilling techniques.  Twelve precise critical processes are involved to turn a raw casting into the perfect flowmeter housing on a typical VAF flowmeter.  Automotive robots may only perform one or two critical operations so VAF needed a multi-task robot.

VAF took delivery of their very special friend in the Summer and since that time programming and commissioning trials have moved on a pace.  The day when production will be handed over to the

robot is fast approaching.  VAF Engineers will assign a task and the robot will work through the night to have the parts ready for the morning.   The human workforce will then finish off the assembly, testing and calibration.   Machining flowmeter bodies, producing rotor assemblies and machining side covers will all be in the work program.

When the robot starts work VAF Engineers will monitor its progress via a video link to ensure that all processes are  running smoothly.

 Mr. Leo Blankenstein, VAF Managing Director, has taken a personal interest in the project and sees this development as a step forward for VAF as they meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

So when you take delivery of  your next VAF flowmeter it may have been manufactured by the our orange friend in the early hours of the morning.

VAF have already made plans to add another robot to the workforce in 2007. 

Does anyone know the Dutch for “Forsprung durch Technik!”

                                                         November 2006