The use of counterfeit and substandard products is a total
gamble with plant performance, putting production
processes, the environment and potentially even lives at
risk. George Robertson, product director of of James Walker
Devol, explains further

Behind all successful products lie
thousands of hours and possibly
millions of pounds in research and
development. Not surprising then that there
is often a queue of unscrupulous businesses
waiting to capitalise by producing cheap
copies. Within any item of plant, such as a
pump or valve, each component has been
carefully designed and selected to work
together to achieve the required performance.

As a result, if any single component from a
pump body casting to a seat or seal doesn’t
meet its expected performance criteria, the
item of plant, its functionality and the process
it serves are compromised.

Counting the cost
The consequences may just be an unnoticed
reduction in safety margins or a shortening
of maintenance intervals. At the other end of
the scale, however, product loss, heavy fines
for excessive emissions or – worst case
scenario – a catastrophic failure are equally
possible and there is no way of knowing
which outcome you will see.

Unfortunately, it is often very easy to make
a component or material that has the same
appearance as a quality high-performance
version for a fraction of the cost by
compromising on raw materials or cutting
corners in the manufacturing process.

Present this counterfeit product at a price
that undercuts the genuine article and there
is big money to be made from users seeking
to reduce their replacement part and
maintenance costs. These counterfeit
products however will not have undergone
rigorous testing and will offer a very different
level of performance under operational
conditions. Sadly, the end user will only find
out when it is too late and the counterfeit
component suffers unexpected failure.

Look for a successful product and you will
often find a victim of counterfeiting as
sealing specialist James Walker has recently
discovered. A number of its highperformance
sealing products have become
victims. The company’s Supagraf
compression packing products, its Devlon
range of thermoplastics and its API metallic
ring type joints have all suffered at the hands
of unscrupulous counterfeiters looking to
cash-in on the reputation of James Walker
and the success of its products.

Documentation
This first came to light when the company
received a number of calls to investigate
catastrophic product failures. The company
was able to test the products concerned and
prove that the failed components were not
manufactured by any James Walker company
and were able to quickly get the customers
back up and running by supplying authentic
product.

During the investigations it also came to
light that some companies supplying the
counterfeit products and materials had even
gone to the extent of falsifying original
documentation to show the components
were manufactured by James Walker. While
this was easy for the James Walker
manufacturing businesses to disprove, the
documents had been sufficiently convincing
to fool the customer into thinking they were
purchasing authentic product.

In these cases the damage to both the
customer’s production process and the
supplier’s reputation were minimised by
prompt action, but it does leave the question
– how many more ‘counterfeit bombs’ are
ticking away out there and how much
damage could they cause when they fail?

Alarm bells
Notifying original manufacturers if you
suspect you are being offered a counterfeit
product will always help the legal fight to
stamp out the problem, but there are other
ways to protect yourself and your business.

If a deal looks too good to be true it
probably is. By the very nature of the duties
they are expected to perform, highperformance
components for critical
applications come at a price for a reason.

Alarm bells should start ringing as soon as
any supplier starts talking significant price
reduction on critical components. At this
point, demand a full ‘paper trail’. If this really
is an authentic product then the supplier
should have testing, certification and case
study paperwork immediately to hand. Even
when dealing with a factor or wholesaler, this
sort of documentation will be available
readily from the manufacturer, who should
be more than willing to confirm the
suitability of the product for your
application.