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For businesses working in critical industries, including offshore oil and gas power generation and water treatment, failure that can result in widespread environmental damage and serious safety risks is simply not an option. For Elvin Feng, President of one of the world’s leading industrial valve manufacturers, Neway Valve China, everything comes back to the principles of reliability and quality.
“We have to have a strong quality system to maintain this reliability and to maintain our reputation in the market,” Feng explains. “In Neway, innovation means continuous improvement in our organization.”
When every single valve needs to be of the utmost quality, the company has created a robust quality management system to ensure every one of the more than 850,000 valves produced each year performs reliably in the field.
With a global energy transition underway that prioritizes cleaner energy and smarter infrastructure, Neway is adapting its technology to meet these shifting customer demands.
“In Neway, innovation means continuous improvement in our organization.”
Conventional oil and gas remains an important market, but the business is continuing to invest in emerging energy sectors.
“Our customers are transferring from oil and gas to more renewables,” he points out. “But oil and gas is not going to disappear, so we still need to focus on continuing to support our customers on better, safe solutions for oil and gas.”
Through a program run by Neway, staff are encouraged to join the innovation journey and share what works.
“We believe all the staff who are working in their sectors can provide solutions or suggestions to improve the current process, applications or management process. We all welcome that,” he adds.
For Feng, Neway’s success is only possible with the collaboration of more than 500 suppliers across dozens of industries and countries.
“The ability of an organization is not just your people and systems, it’s also your supply chain. That’s why we really value the partnership with our suppliers,” he says.
Instead of seeking to find the lowest cost supplier, Feng and his team focus on quality and work to develop relationships for the long-term.
“We buy competitiveness and reliability. Even for some of the suppliers, their cost is not so competitive, but they can always deliver reliable, good quality products on time,” he says. “These firms will always be a strategic partner for us.”
While Neway heavily invests in research and development, joint R&D projects are a priority as Feng is acutely aware of the external expertise this approach can bring.
“In today’s economy, nobody can do everything by themselves,” he says.
“The ability of an organization is not just your people and systems, it’s also your supply chain.”
An example of these essential partners is Biffi, whose technologies support Neway’s focus on delivering intelligent flow control solutions for critical industries. It’s exactly these kinds of partners, Feng believes, that are essential to move the company toward greater automation and digitalization.
“We need a more globalized supply chain to support our globalized operation and manufacturing base,” he says. “So we also try to offer more jobs, more opportunities for our supply chain and business partners globally.
“We want to grow together and win.”
Today, most of Neway’s manufacturing base is in China, but Feng is trying to expand into new locations and become a more globalized company. Building on their bases in Vietnam, a new factory is under construction in Saudi Arabia.
The transformation of Neway, which Feng sees as evolving from a traditional valve manufacturer into a global technology and life cycle solutions provider, is already well underway. Part of this means embracing automation and AI, with Neway well placed to expand its role far beyond designing and manufacturing valves.
“We don’t want to just manufacture and sell and leave,” he says. “We want to be a life cycle service provider with that solution.”
“Before, a lot of the operation of the valve was done through manual operating,” he says.
To meet this demand, Neway is integrating smart technologies into its products, creating valves that aren’t just standalone hardware but connected assets that form part of a wider digital infrastructure.
“The valve is just a piece of the hardware we try to build. On top of this, we integrate smarter solutions and smart systems to bring more value-added solutions for our customers,” Feng notes.
By continuing to integrate actuators, sensors and software into valve systems, equipment can be remotely monitored and customers can respond before failures happen.
“In the traditional way, the customer needs to do the maintenance until the valve fails,” he says. “But now, we try to do that proactively.”
The value of collecting operational data cannot be overstated, especially as AI and digital manufacturing become more prevalent in the industry.
“Now, it’s also the age of AI and digitalization solutions and we can link these to enhance the efficiency,” he says.
“The owners have a dream to build a 100-year-old company.”
In Feng’s experience, automation, too, will both improve productivity and strengthen consistency across manufacturing.
“This will be a win–win situation for our industry. Better specs but lower price, shorter delivery and consistent, reliable, quality output,” he explains.
“All investments, whether in automation, AI, 3D printing or international expansion, are guided by Neway’s long-term goal of creating a business that thrives for generations to come.
“The owners have a dream to build a 100-year-old company. We have to continuously enhance and also transfer this culture and our value in the organization.
“We always need to focus on long-term decisions and a sustainable strategy.”
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