Valve Survey Reduces Risk of Costly Production Stoppages at Scottish Distillery

A distillery based on the Isle of Harris off the West Coast of Scotland had suffered a valve failure. Their on-site spares were inadequate, and with the distillery a three-hour ferry journey from the mainland, a mechanical breakdown would clearly result in a significant period of downtime. The team at Hayley Group’s branch in Inverness were contacted for assistance.

A member of the Hayley Inverness team arranged to visit the customers’ site to conduct a full valve survey. During this, all valves in-use were catalogued with their criticality and replacement availability also recorded. A critical spares list was also created.

This exercise determined which valves were needed to be held by the customer for emergency reactive maintenance and which products could be held in stock at Hayley Inverness for more proactive maintenance activities.

Thanks to the proactive response by the Hayley Inverness team, the customer is now fully supported by stock of critical parts, including valves, held by Hayley Inverness. The customers’ own spares inventory is now also much-improved with relevant replacement valves for critical applications within the distillery.

Valve failures on-site could have led to the customer facing incredibly lengthy lead times, especially given their relatively remote location. This carried a real risk of causing thousands of pounds worth of product being wasted with production stopped. Hayley Group’s valuable intervention has eased these concerns.