Revolution-X Begins with Voice of the Customer
The introduction of the revolutionary VSX (vertical split-case excellence) pumps scheduled for February 2006 culminates from more than three years of intense planning and design that began with Bell & Gossett’s innovative Voice of the Customer (VOC) program.
As a leading manufacturer and marketer of HVAC pumps, Bell & Gossett created an ambitious program interviewing hundreds of its customers about what needs were most important to them. More than three hundred interviews were conducted with consulting/specifying engineers, contractors, building managers, wholesalers, distributors, and other industry experts located around the world.
In addition to gaining extremely valuable input on a variety of pump-related issues, one message came through loud and clear: Industry users wanted a split-case pump that provided features and benefits not currently available from any existing pumps in the marketplace.
Among the key customer suggestions that were gathered for a new pump were the following product benefits:
Armed with this VOC feedback, Bell & Gossett engineers utilized internally developed software coupled with an advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) process to design a series of pumps that exceeds these customer requests.
The new VSX pump platform addresses these VOC requirements by including the following product features:
In addition to the specific requests outlined above, the new VSX pump features a unique “Plug-n-Play” capability that allows simple field modifications for various mechanical seals, external flushing capability and wireless monitoring capability. In addition, the VSX offers the first built-in power generator to power the sensors and Data Module, so that external power wiring is unnecessary.
“The VSX is truly a pump designed by our customers - the end users,” said Karl Buscher, Vice-President Marketing for ITT Fluid Handling Division. “They told us they wanted an innovative pump that provides a variety of important performance features not currently available to the HVAC marketplace, so we created it.”
Bell & Gossett has named the introduction of the new series of pumps Revolution X because they believe it changes the way pumps have been designed for the last 50 years. “Until now, pump flow was maximized by pushing extreme velocities through the same 50-year-old pump volute and matching existing pump size to chiller and tower needs,” said Steve Schmitz, Sr. Product Line Manager for Bell & Gossett. “When we engineered the VSX, we first identified customers’ chiller and tower hydraulic needs, and then we designed the pump sizes to meet these and other specific needs.”
The Revolution will officially begin in February of 2006, but the seeds of the revolution started with the Voice of the Customer (VOC) process three years earlier.
Bell & Gossett, a unit of ITT Industries, is a leading manufacturer of centrifugal pumps, circulators, hydronic specialties, heat exchangers, and packaged systems for variable and constant speed pumping, heat transfer and pressure boosting.
Source: Xylem Inc.
