Vehicle manufacturing like any major industrial process has its own unique solids pumping challenges. For example, handling the difficult combination of metallic waste, cutting oils and coolants generated by the large CNC machines operating on engine and transmission manufacture. The Ford engine plants at Dagenham and Bridgend in South Wales have to process this type of waste and have benefitted from the powerful performance of VAUGHAN chopper pumps supplied by Vaughan’s UK distributor P&M PUMPS.
The origins of the application began in the late 1990s when Vaughan Co. supplied an initial trial pump to a Michigan based OEM filter systems manufacturer. The pump was tested to see how it would perform against the conventional method of handling waste material and coolant collected from CNC machines. The design and operational characteristics of the Vaughan pump provided an effective, all-in-one combination of shredder and pump which could handle all the ingredients of the machine waste, affectionately known as ‘pump backs’ in the industry.
After 4 years of validation and ongoing collaboration between Vaughan, the filter systems engineers and Ford Motor Company’s transmission and coolant specialists, Vaughan was chosen as the preferred type of pump for the waste handling applications.
Fast forward to 2015 and Vaughan’s UK distributor P&M Pumps became involved with the supply of 74 bespoke design V3M ‘pump back’ pumping systems for similar waste handling applications at Ford’s UK engine plant sites at Dagenham and Port Talbot. These pumps were supplied from Detroit and then the packaged system was fabricated and built in the UK by P&M Pumps. They were then shipped to the German CNC manufacturer for eventual delivery and installation at the Ford UK sites.
Today, approximately 175 Vaughan pumps are, in the words of Ford Motor Company’s engineers, “performing flawlessly” on the waste handling pump applications associated with their huge CNC machine tool processes. Through their experiences at numerous UK waste water treatment and manufacturing sites, P&M Pumps are able to demonstrate that Vaughan Chopper Pumps are an extremely effective option on the most challenging solids pumping applications.
