As a globally recognized specialist for pilot control valves, Thomas can look back on a long and eventful history of innovation and a fair few milestones achieved along the way. Full of drive and curiosity, interdisciplinary teams from sales, product management, and R&D work on sophisticated, efficiency-boosting solutions for current and as-yet undiscovered applications. It is this mindset that defines Thomas – the way it has always been.
Decades of experience in valve pilot control
Pilot control valves for pumps, couplings, and large directional control valves harbor a great deal of potential, and the ability to spot and exploit this has done much over the years to make pilot control valves what they are today. What’s more, Thomas has set standards that continue to shape the market even now. The company combines decades of expertise with a comprehensive understanding of applications and markets, supplying answers to urgent questions and giving its customers exactly what they are looking for. Improved safety? Higher precision? More performance coupled with greater efficiency? Thomas has always found a solution, from the simplest components through to the most precise pilot control valves. These are CPU-controlled, regulate the pilot pressure in the main stage entirely electronically, and offer a pioneering alternative to purely mechanical solutions.
The origins of off-highway solutions
Thomas’s portfolio was highly diverse up until the 1990s, when it was streamlined following a decision to focus on the automotive sector. “Mobile hydraulics” at Thomas was ultimately born when the company developed and manufactured a proportional pressure-reducing valve (known as the PDMV, after the German “Proportional-Druckminderventil”) for an application commissioned by a major international customer. Interest in this solution grew across the whole market, meaning that Thomas was soon producing as many as 300,000 of them every year.
360°
Establishing a new standard
The success of Thomas’s PDMV laid the foundations for a new industry standard, with OEMs using it as a blueprint to design their installation spaces, drilled holes, and fasteners. This led to some well-known competitors following suit with products that mirrored Thomas’s in key respects, specifically the cavity. They were able to do this because installation spaces and geometries cannot be patented in Europe.
From big to small: the next generation
The next milestone was reached in 2003, when the Mobile Hydraulics business unit pooled all the company’s off-highway activities and adopted a systematic and targeted approach to tackling the topic. This included harnessing factors such as cost reduction and miniaturization in order to stay ahead of the competition. The “PDMV NG” project thus gave rise to the valve of the same name (with “NG” standing for “new generation”). Much easier to handle than its predecessor, it was made using fewer materials and therefore represented even better value for money.
The PDMV NG formed part of many new projects right from day one and soon established itself as a second product line alongside the PDMV, to which the OEMs stayed loyal. Thomas still has both products in its range, demonstrating yet again how universally the standard that the company set with the PDMV has been adopted in the industry.
The NG gets a “big brother”
The next stage in its development came in 2014, when a major international customer in the off-highway sector needed a bigger NG in order to achieve higher flow rates. The client’s expectations on the pricing front were ambitious to say the least. By focusing on the product properties that were key to the customer’s requirements, Thomas succeeded in squaring the circle and came up with the PPCD05 – the NG’s “big brother,” which continues to enjoy market success to this day.
The PPCD05 is available in two different versions, one created specifically for the above-mentioned customer and the other intended for the general market. The PPCD05 represents yet another standard set by Thomas.
The off-highway specialist that’s “a bit different”
So how come Thomas has succeeded in setting standards not once but multiple times? It is undoubtedly thanks to optimized supply chain processes, comprehensive end-of-line quality assurance, unbeatable delivery reliability, and a keen sense of quality awareness amongst all its staff. Its customer support team also includes an army of field application engineers who go the extra mile whenever there are products needing implementing. Plus there is Thomas’s experience in the automotive segment: as a premium manufacturer, it boasts unrivalled expertise in this field that is injecting significant momentum into mobile hydraulics.
The future belongs to the lean yet mighty
It is no surprise that the Off-Highway Solutions team have big things in mind for the future. Or, more accurately, “small things,” because the portfolio is to be made leaner and more cost-efficient to benefit customers, with the Electromechanical Actuator (EMA) set to play a starring role. This is because electromechanical engineering presents considerable advantages over hydraulics, and a single EMA can replace two hydraulic directional control valves. Thomas is currently adding new features to the EMA and increasing its range of sizes to ensure maximum flexibility. Functional safety and cybersecurity are included as a matter of course and go towards making a genuinely ground-breaking product. What’s more, Thomas always communicates candidly and directly with its customers – qualities that can be crucial to shared success given the fast pace of development cycles.
From the PDMV and recent product developments such as the Compact Pilot Actuator (CPA) through to the Electromechanical Actuator (EMA), Thomas has consistently re-imagined its products, rolled back the boundaries of the possible, and set benchmarks in its capacity as a development partner. The result has been innovative technologies that continue to add value for customers and set standards to this day. And the future will be no different.
English 
German