How Rosendahl Nextrom Improves Fiber Optic Production Efficiency with Swagelok
Rosendahl Nextrom Oy, a customer of Swagelok Helsinki, supplies advanced production technologies for optical fiber and preform manufacturers worldwide. To maintain the exceptional purity and quality standards required in fiber optic manufacturing, Rosendahl Nextrom relies on Swagelok fluid system products for dependable leak-tight performance and contamination control. Beyond components, Swagelok provides training services that help expand employee expertise in fluid system design, installation, and maintenance. Custom engineered solutions from Swagelok have also helped simplify system designs, reduce component count, and save valuable space within production equipment. In addition, Swagelok’s vendor-managed inventory (VMI) program ensures critical parts are readily available onsite, helping Rosendahl Nextrom streamline operations, improve production efficiency, and respond quickly to changing manufacturing demands.
Video Transcript
We make machines that produce products that are completely invisible to many people.
Our customers are fiber manufacturers and preform manufacturers whose products end up in cable products. So, we manufacture machines and equipment for the production of optical fiber and optical fiber cable.
Optical fiber is used in telecommunications, various specialty fibers, laser systems, sensing systems, and so on.
What makes Rosendahl really successful is that they have a full production line. From the very beginning, they create the glass core, coat the core, and then use tools to pull the core all the way into a fiber optic strand.
The cleanliness of gases is particularly important to us because of the quality of the finished product. The product handles several types of gases, and for this reason, product leak tightness and leak security are important for us. Therefore, we use Swagelok products.
Swagelok has been a significant part of our company’s development, especially in the preform and specialty fiber product lines, where the company has grown significantly in recent years.
Cleanliness of the components that Rosendahl Nextrom uses is very critical because the most important piece in fiber optics is the glass core.
Ordinary window glass is 4 mm thick, and the preform and optical fiber made from it are so pure that if it were window glass, it would be seven kilometers, or 4.35 miles, thick before it damaged light transmission in the same way as normal window glass.
We have done a lot of training with Rosendahl Nextrom. For example, Swagelok Essentials covers how to install tube fittings. Tube bending training helps them do more efficient tube bending when needed. Orbital welding training helps make all of this work seamlessly together.
The challenge that Rosendahl Nextrom had was space. The space and layout that engineering had included three separate valves. With the product, we were able to squeeze those three valves down into one block, and then we were able to reduce some of the components they needed. Swagelok products are really helping them with the speed of production and a high-quality system design.
We have talked with Swagelok Helsinki for a long time about how we could organize the production of gas cabinets, and finally, this year, we have reached the stage where we actually have a small local warehouse that we can use directly in manufacturing.
One of the services we provide for Rosendahl Nextrom is VMI, where we, as a supplier, carry all the inventory they need for production.
I think the benefit of the VMI warehouse system is that the customer can have the products here, but they do not have to pay first and then put them aside to wait.
They always have the right parts at the right time on hand when they really need them. They do not need to enter individual orders anymore. And they do not need to track and receive the deliveries. They also do not need to handle as many invoices.
Thanks to the VMI warehouse, we are able to react more quickly to changing situations in production and better meet our internal security of supply.
I hope you also understand how important Swagelok local support is. In addition to global support, when parts and components are quickly available when needed, the importance of local support and local expertise cannot be underestimated. Communication in one's own language here locally is always easier, faster, and smoother.
