The Dished End Company has announced that it has amalgamated its two Gauteng manufacturing operations for its dished end products, and moved to a new site in Greenhills Tunney Ext 7, Elandsfontein, Gauteng to consolidate its activities.
“When we established the company our original manufacturing operation was set up in a 1000m² facility in Greenhills Industrial Estate, Elandsfontein, Gauteng,” said Noel Saunders MD of The Dished End Company, a company he founded four years ago in 2011.
“Then the opportunity arose to purchase Tank Ends, a well-known and respected company in the industry that had been operating for over 40 years. The company was based in Booysens Reserve, Johannesburg and supplied dished ends required in many industries throughout the country, including the petrochemicals, mining, road and rail transport, metallurgical, food and beverage, and the pulp and paper industries.”
“The Dished End Company had been very successful in capturing a sizeable portion of the market but we lacked capacity. This was the main reason why we acquired Tank Ends, although having previously worked for Tank Ends for over 33 years before I sold my shareholding in the company, did also have an influence.”
“We took control at the beginning of August 2013 and the company continued to operate from the 1700m² facility in Booysens Reserve,” continued Saunders.
“However that facility was not very user friendly as it had become extremely spread out in a run-down building over the years. One of the machines was even housed in a separate building down the road. This was not ideal and it was only a matter of time before we would become frustrated with the situation.”
“More importantly we are always looking for ways to increase productivity and increase our penetration in the market. Generally, the more that operations can be consolidated, the less part handling is required. Combining different operations also can improve part accuracy.”
“We found this 3700m² facility and began moving both operations into it at the beginning of November 2015.”
The new facility, which consolidates the company’s two existing sites, has been renovated and upgraded and now includes a new 10 ton overhead crane, which has been added to the existing two 5 ton cranes, and a new 216 KVA generator to alleviate any load shedding problems.
The format of the new facility is in the shape of a rectangle with no obstructions to disrupt workflow. The move has also given The Dished End Company the opportunity to arrange machines performing similar operations into cells.
This includes the 3D CNC robotic profile plasma machine, which the company believes is the only one of its kind in South Africa. Besides cutting the discs to form a dish end it also prepares and cuts nozzle holes, bevels nozzle holes to required specifications, prepares for welding symmetrically to the nozzle centre line, trims straight flanges and bevels straight-flange edges. The machine guarantees CNC quality and accuracy prior to fitment of the dished end onto the barrel or pressure vessel, and adds value to the fabricator.
Boldrini press
New on the floor since the move is a Boldrini press which was recently imported from France. The two-column Boldrini hydraulic press has a distance of seven metres between the columns and can accommodate material widths up to 6.5 metres.
“We don’t have much call for this size dish end but at least it gives us the option if needed.”
“Dish end manufacture is a niche business within the fabricating world but the call for the use of dish ends is numerous. Pressure vessels are used primarily in the transport and storage industries, and I can name hundreds of industries that require pressure vessels. The food and beverage, gas, petroleum, heating, cooling, water filtration and brewery industries, to name a few, all require pressure vessels in some form or shape. In fact, any industry that is using a pressure vessel or storage tank requires a convex end,” explained Saunders.
“Dished ends are the end caps welded to the main body of a pressure vessel. They are produced using a variety of production methods depending on the type of dished end required, which will also need to reflect the characteristics of the end product. The cap starts off as a flat disc with the material being a suitable grade for the application required.”
“In most cases the client will supply his own material to the dished end fabricator already cut to the diameter disc required. We can also supply the customer with the required sizes if necessary. We can also source the required material for the customer ourselves and supply to the customer a completed product from start to finish.”
The company’s most popular products include a range of dished ends with inside diameters between 400mm to 5,5 metres and a maximum thickness of 30mm cold formed, and 30mm to 50mm hot formed.
“Hefty competition usually drives companies to consolidate to achieve economies of scale. However in our case we needed additional space and more control,” concluded Saunders.
For further details contact The Dished End Company on TEL: 011 822 4550 or visit www.dishedendco.co.za