Margaret, from India, is an old hand in the procurement of hydraulic components, especially good at price reduction, and has little cooperation with AAK, basically small quantities of high requirement hydraulic valves. 1 year ago, she wanted us to develop a high requirement hydraulic flow control valve and promised that there will be big qty of reorders. After the trial order was sent, there was still no reorder, and I didn\'t want to push. In her email last month, she said that 160 hydraulic flow control valves tested last year were needed, and the price was required to be maintained and the fastest delivery time was required.
This hydraulic flow control valve was used in hydraulic bending machine equipment, and the early test run was very smooth. The equipment was sold very well. Unexpectedly, 3 months later, customers complained about the weakness of the hydraulic system of the bending machine. Some valve spools and valve bodies of the hydraulic flow control valves were worn, causing leakage, resulting in the weakness of hydraulic system of bending machine. The original hydraulic flow control valve manufacturer believed that the bending machine was used with high frequency, so a small proportion of wear was normal, but Margaret\'s supervisor didn\'t think so. He predicted that there would be more and more complaints later. In fact, what his supervisor predicted was right. Margaret had to change the manufacturer. She contacted many manufacturers, but none of them was willing to develop it because of the small quantity or they couldn\'t meet her requirements. Margaret was worried at this time.
Until receiving her email, I just knew that this hydraulic flow control valve had reorders, but were not placed with AAK, she came to me this time because she had no way. Frankly speaking, although AAK had existing procedures, I didn\'t want to produce this order for 160 pcs of quantity. It was not until her boss found my boss 3 days later that I gave a 1 month production time and a 50% increase in the quotation. Margaret still approved our S/C. She was criticized by her boss because they not only lost the payment to the original hydraulic flow control valve manufacturer, but also undertook an additional 50%. I estimate that Margaret will never dare to transfer the order of AAK again.
I was thinking that if your hydraulic valve manufacturing quality and service level are high, in the communication with customers, you can be polite and dignified, neither humble nor overbearing, otherwise the customers don\'t take you seriously. The business should be done standing. Although AAK price of this hydraulic flow control valve has been increased by 50%, it has taught Margaret and me a lesson. I sent out 160 hydraulic flow control valves in only 2 weeks. Margaret was very grateful for my advance shipping, and we had mended the fences between us.
It took us 2 months to test the sample of this hydraulic flow control valve. We knew its difficulties, and we solved it with 3 points:
The valve spool is made of 20CrNi2MoV high carburized bearing steel from Germany. Through secondary quenching + cryogenic treatment + low temperature tempering process, the molecular structure of the material is improved, the microhardness is 237 ~ 247 HV, and its wear resistance and contact fatigue performance are increased by more than 3 times.
Swiss machine tools are used for processing, coupled with AAK\'s own modified fixtures, human errors are eliminated.
We can achieve 3drops/min for this hydraulic flow control valve, which is benchmarked with HydraForce, while most peers can only achieve 5drops/min.
AAK hydraulic flow control valve is not only wear-resistant, but also leak free. You can also have a small try!
AAK HYDRAULIC VALVES (285) 2022-07-12
