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Wandfluh is recognised as an international market leader in design and manufacture of hydraulic valves and Electronic controls systems. It serves a worldwide market through its sister companies and distribution network with products both industrial and mobile equipment.
The principle advantage of Wandfluh Worldwide is that they have for many years been able to design and manufacture bespoke valves for Customers' requirements based on their standard range. Wandfluh's hydraulic valves, solenoids and electronics are designed in house, which gives them greater flexibility to offer a comprehensive range of products including designing of hydraulic integrated manifolds to suit customers' applications where required.
Wandfluh Worldwide is recognised as an International market leader of design and manufacture of Hydraulic valves and Electronic control systems.
Wandfluh's products are used for Industrial, mobile equipment for Agricultural, Forestry, Rail, Construction, Material Handling, Subsea ROVs, Offshore industries including purpose build manifolds/valve packs.
The Wandfluh name has long been associated for its full range of standard products including Proportional, Directional control, Pressure, Flow control valves in both Mini & Cetop format, there is an ever increasing range of new Cartridge products to complement their traditional valves.
Wandfluh A. G. recently celebrated 55 years of trading as a family concern based in the town of Frutigen, which is in the Berne district of Switzerland. Wandfluh has always dedicated itself to the well being of those people who live in the Kander Valley, which surrounds the two main factories and is considered one of the main employers within the district today.
To take you back in the history of the ever - developing company of Wandfluh, we have to start at the beginning. The company was founded by a pioneering young man of 22 years of age called Ruedi Wandfluh in the year 1946 just after the war, along with two employees. Ruedi Wandfluh started a small engineering workshop to offer a service in the repair business for local companies in the Kander valley.
Over the next 9 years in difficult trading times the company was still able to expand to 10 personnel. The death of Mr Ruedi Wandfluh in 1954 raised some big question marks over the future of the company, however, his wife Gertrud Wandfluh took control of the company and continued her late husband’s success.
The hydraulic era for Wandfluh started in 1960, when they decided to develop and produce hydraulic valves to sell. This was a very important decision for the future of Wandfluh. The break through in the hydraulic industry was realized in 1962 and this was predominantly in the Swiss Machine tool industry. This gave rapid growth within the company and there was an increase of 40 personnel in the factory based at Kandergrund in 1966.
As the company grew over the coming years they managed to acquire a company called Muller & Co, which was one of their competitors in 1975. A new factory was purpose built to accommodate both companies and their staff.
In 1975 Wandfluh achieved a very important milestone, when they developed their first Euro -type electronic card to control their hydraulic valves. Significantly they manufactured some very special valves for that era, which are still used widely through out the world today. The first truly soft switching valves were designed to achieve a gentle start and stop movement of the cylinders and motors compared to the standard normal directional control valves. Other innovative products were the miniature valves for manipulators and robotics, where space was a premium and small flows were required for control of comparatively small cylinders.
Mr Hansruedi Wandfluh, the son of the founder started his activities as the new Managing Director at Wandfluh in 1983. Before his appointment, he spent some time in England studying the requirements of applications for the hydraulic industry outside of Switzerland.
As the company continued to expand, Hansreudi soon realized the potential for his company to become more international so he invested in sister companies in the United States of America and Germany.
In 1986, Wandfluh made a big investment for a prestigious new building in Switzerland to enable them to cope with the expansion of the product range and realize the production levels required to cover worldwide demands. They are still manufacturing here today.
In 1991, Wandfluh were the first hydraulic company in Switzerland to achieve successfully the International Quality certificate ISO 9001 and with this increased growth in turnover they were able to finance the opening of two new sales offices in Switzerland at Zurich and Lausanne.
In this year, Hansruedi Wandfluh recognized the importance of setting up a sister company in Great Britain. Mr Mike Harrison was appointed Managing Director of the company Wandfluh UK Ltd. to be based in Leamington Spa. in Warwickshire, with a factory space of 400 sq meters.
Wandfluh UK set about the task of expanding the sales of Wandfluh products in Great Britain and soon the factory had reached full capacity. Hansruedi Wandfluh decided that it was time to invest in a purpose built factory in England.
In 1999, the company was moved to Southam, in Warwickshire, in 2011 plans are already being discussed to approve an increased area to cope with the development of sales in the Valve manifold assemblies and Valve pack assemblies using mainly the Wandfluh product range.
At the beginning of 2005 the business had reached £750 k. Mr. Trevor Allen took over the responsibility for the UK operation and drove the business forward.
During the years of 2005 to 2010 the company grew by minimum of 30% each year until in 2009 where the world market recession took its toll and had an effect on all companies including Wandfluh UK Ltd. Despite this Wandfluh UK managed to develop new markets and in 2010 we are now operating 88% above 2009 sales figures producing the best year since the company started trading in 1991 going to a record turnover of £2.7Million
The portfolio of Wandfluh AG and its special products within the Wandfluh range are continually being developed to meet the special applications that are required in current Markets.
Wandfluh products offer a wide range of valves to suit customer needs and here are just a few of the valves, which Wandfluh are well known for:-
One of the important features of the Wandfluh product range is the ability to build most items in–house. They have developed a range of electronic cards (Analogue and Digital) to control their very fine range of proportional valves, when used in open or closed loop circuits.
Wandfluh continue to grow in difficult market conditions by being flexible enough to develop new products to suit the ever, expanding range of applications for hydraulics.
This is the main reason for the continued success of Wandfluh worldwide.
Wandfluh UK Ltd. has moved into new markets to offer complimentary products to the Wandfluh range so that we can offer a complete package for our customers’ demands.
In house we have set up a design team to design / resolve customers’ requirements for purpose built valve packs / valve assemblies to complete kit of parts for their applications which has seen growth develop year on year.
We have invested in a state of the art hydraulic test rig which tests all sizes of valves from NG3 mini3 to NG 25 / Cetop8 – plus stand alone manifolds too- the test rig allows our engineers to test in close loop and open loop mode.
The test rig have two motors and cylinders plus two cylinders fitted so we can control in synchronised operation to demonstrate our digital cards SD6 and MD2
Listed below are some of the products we are distributors in addition to the Wandfluh range that we market and hold stock of:-
With the additional products on board we can attack new markets and continue to build on the success of Wandfluh UK Ltd here in the United Kingdom and overseas.