For more than 70 years, the core competence of Gloor Brothers Ltd, a family business based in Burgdorf, Switzerland, has been the regulation of pressure and flow of technical gases. When the business earned its EN ISO: 13485 certification in 1994, the company entered the medical technology arena, an area it has continued to expand in ever since.

With the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, the demand for fittings for therapeutic oxygen delivery devices rose sharply, resulting in a capacity bottleneck in the turning department at Gloor. However, thanks to a long-standing collaboration between Gloor and machine tool manufacturer Tornos, the company was able to quickly react to the ramp up in demand and help save lives.

Gloor's services range from the planning and implementation of the pipeline network in hospitals and doctors’ practices to the fittings for supplying patients with the required medical gases.

The product range covers the supply of medical gases from central gas supply systems to fittings for mobile emergency medicine. The central gas supply includes automatic switchover of the supply sources with medical gases, the area shut-off and monitoring units up to the extraction point of the gases for supplying the patients with the necessary medical gases.

The range is supplemented by all the withdrawal devices, pressure and flow regulators and vacuum fittings.

Products are developed and produced in-house to provide the flexibility to respond quickly and professionally to special customer needs.

Close partnership
Gloor Brothers Ltd has maintained a close partnership with Tornos in the field of turning machines for decades. In the 1990s, the management team decided to purchase its first Tornos CNC machine, which is still in operation today for special fittings. Over time, five more Tornos single-spindle sliding headstock lathes have joined the line-up.

These CNC machines play a major role in ensuring that brass parts can be manufactured to the required quality to ensure the reliable operation of fittings in the medical sector.

Andreas Weyermann, Gloor Brothers head of manufacturing, said he is delighted with the recent arrival of a brand new Tornos EvoDECO 32, which was chosen for its amazing precision and unsurpassed capabilities.

He said: “Our employees are trained at the Tornos Academy in Moutier. When they return from their courses, they have mastered the EvoDECO 32 and its programs and can operate the machine to its full potential.”

Mr Weyermann added: “The Coronavirus pandemic has greatly increased the demand for our products, so we had to increase our production capacity to meet the demand.”

To this end, the turning department can rely on the performance of the Tornos machines, which run at full speed day and night.

Production manager Sasa Selenic said: “We still work in one shift, but the machines have a certain autonomy and run unattended for several hours at night in the so-called ‘ghost shift’. Our company currently has about 90 employees, seven of whom are apprentices in the poly-mechanic and commercial clerk professions.

“We also have a German subsidiary in Lübeck, which is active in the sales and services of products for medical technology.”

All manufacturing processes from design to the final product are carried out by Gloor Brothers Ltd, and quality is monitored throughout the entire process. Swiss-made precision, flexibility, sustainability and social commitment are a matter of course for the company.