During the last decade, the Shop Inspections department of Bureau Veritas has been involved in independent 3rd party inspections related to projects as well as products manufactured by Spaans Babcock. This company, located in Balk in The Netherlands, is the internationally leading manufacturer of Archimedean screw pumps and Hydro-turbines and a prominent supplier of low-speed surface aerators and fine screens.
The inspections we have performed include special screw pumps for various applications in a wide variety of industries all around the world: stormwater and drainage pumping stations, inlet and return activated sludge pumping stations of wastewater, treatment plants and hydropower stations.
Our inspection services relate to verification of compliance with customer requirements and include aspects such as the elements mentioned below:
- (visual inspections of) welding (before, during and /or after fabrication)
- (verification of) welders' qualifications according to EN ISO 9606-1:2017
- dimensional checks according to approved drawings
- (verification of) coating thickness according to the customer specifications
- review of material inspection certificates according to EN 10029:2010, EN 10025-2:2019
- pre shipment inspections
Some of the benefits of our approach include:
- adding value to the operations and to the end users’ activities
- confidence of a third-party verification during inspection activities
- independent demonstration of the quality of the screw pumps
Through our service we provide tangible handles for improvement of both quality and operational aspects in the manufacturing process. Additionally, we bring an analytical approach to the table during our inspections related to potential safety risks in the work area. Subsequently we have thus supported Spaans Babcock with safety improvement within the assembly phase of the manufacturing process over the past few years.
Bernard van der Klocht, Project Manager Spaans Babcock B.V.:
“Delivering a robust inspection report to our customers, based on technical expertise by an experienced inspector is the added value provided by Bureau Veritas. Not all of our customers have this knowledge within their organizations so these kinds of inspections are ideal. They save our customers money in terms of travel and accommodation, particularly if they are based in far-flung locations. Also, customers who lack this expert knowledge might reject or approve something for all the wrong reasons and/or without proper justification, a situation which isn’t in anyone’s interest.”
