Hyosung opens industrial pump testing facility

Hyosung Goodsprings CEO Lim Woo-seop, left, at the pump testing center yesterday with Hyosung President Cho Hyun-joon. Provided by the company

Hyosung Goodsprings, a pump and desalination facility manufacturer under Hyosung Group, said yesterday that it has finished constructing the world’s largest pump testing center in Changwon, South Gyeongsang.

According to the company, the center can test a pump that has the capacity to process 110,000 cubic meters of water per hour, enough to purify water for all of Seoul’s citizens in a day. The facility can also test water pressure up to 400 bars.

“The completion of the testing center provides an opportunity for Hyosung Goodsprings to jump ahead and lead the trend as the pump market moves into larger and highly pressurized products,” said Cho Hyun-joon, Hyosung’s Corporate Strategy Center chief and the first son of Hyosung Group Chairman Cho Suk-rae. “We firmly believe it will increase Korea’s competitiveness in winning more overseas plant orders.”

Hyosung Goodsprings, which was founded in 1962 and is Korea’s largest industrial pump manufacturer, currently collects 60 percent of its sales from overseas. The company said that the center in South Gyeongsang will help increase its sales to 1 trillion won ($949 million) by 2020.

Hyosung said that the testing center will give the company a more competitive edge because it will reduce the time it takes for a pump to be tested. The new facility can test three high-pressure pumps at once and is 70 percent faster than normal testing equipment. The testing center reduces test time on large pumps by half, as it can test two at once.

Since the company is also one of the leaders in nuclear energy equipment, becoming one of the 10 companies in the world to earn a production certificate from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2009, it hopes to make progress in testing nuclear reactor pumps.

BY JOO KYUNG-DON [kjoo@joongang.co.kr]