Serving the local pharma companies

Valve Services, based in new, purpose-built premises in the heart of the pharmachem sector in Cork, has grown up alongside the Irish pharmaceutical industry by spotting an opening for repairing and reconditioning valves locally to save companies having to send them to England.

From that starting point it has expanded and now represents a number of valve and related equipment manufacturers serving the Irish market. Some 50-60% of its business is in the pharmaceutical sector, and it also exports to the UK and Singapore to overcome the size limitations inherent in the Irish market.

The company now employs more than 20 people and has a turnover which has risen steadily to just over €4m, of which €1m comes from the reconditioning work and €3m from sales. 'I don't particularly want to be the biggest valve company in the country, I want to be the most profitable,' says managing director Donal Grogan.

Valves in pharma plants valves have to be refurbished regularly - and a company the size of Pfizer in Ireland, for example, might have well in excess of 1,000 safety valves. These have to be dismantled, recalibrated and certified every two to three years, which is usually done as part of a rolling maintenance programme. Grogan is currently considering investing €50,000 in a portable test rig.

The problem is being confident that there will be a large enough volume of work available in the future to support the investment. 'The pharma sector has gone very quiet here over the last 12 months - the Celtic tiger is a little bit out of breath at the moment,' Grogan comments.

But with factory shutdowns getting shorter, companies want more work done in house, and where there is a large number of valves to be reconditioned at one time the investment could pay off.