Dive in

The founders and directors of Livorno, Italy-based precision engineering company, Subspec Srl, have made investments and alliances that have had a rapid and positive effect on demand for its line of professional diving equipment.

With Haas CNC machining capability in-house, the company is able to control cost, new product development and, critically, part quality.

Professional deep sea divers need to know a thing or two about technology and engineering, but they’re not usually required to know how to run CNC machine tools. The founders of Italian dive equipment manufacturing company, Subspec Srl on the other hand, have taught themselves all they need to know to make parts for some of the best and most innovative commercial dive systems available.

“My friend and colleague, Ciro Caiazzo, and I started the company in 2012,” says managing director David Marzi. “We were both commercial divers working around the world in the oil and gas industry and had an idea for a gas reclaim valve. We felt the industry generally was slow to develop and adopt new technology, so we thought we’d design, make, and patent the product ourselves.”

During lengthy, deep dives, professional divers use very large amounts of breathing gas mix. A gas reclaim system recovers helium – an expensive constituent of breathing gas that would otherwise be vented and lost to the atmosphere. A gas reclaim valve is a critical component of the gas reclaim system, and is subject to high rates of wear and corrosion.

The responsibility for running Subspec’s CNC machining operations falls to technical director Ciro Caiazzo: “Our main machine is a Haas VM-2 mould maker,” he says. “Our products – typically valves – are critical features and can mean the difference between life and death if they don’t work flawlessly and reliably. We wanted to be 100% sure the parts were made to our standards, and to eliminate the possibility of quality issues. That’s why we bought the Haas machine – so we could take control and do all the critical machining in-house.

“Most of the parts we make are stainless steel, and tolerances are tight; 0.02mm is common for an O-ring seat,” he adds. “The VM-2 table has a grid of T-slots in X and Y which gives us flexibility for holding all the different sizes and shapes of parts we machine. We also carry out our own laser welding in-house and a few other processes, such as vacuum casting.”

These days, Subspec is a leader in bespoke subsea diving systems and has close ties and partnerships with various other organisations, including neighbouring firm, Drass Srl, which manufacturers the full gas reclaim system in which the Subspec valve is used, as well as complete hyperbaric chambers, and other systems used by commercial saturation divers.

“We make all the fittings and valves for the chambers, and the diver monitoring and safety systems built by Drass,” says Mr Marzi. “For example, a complete hyperbaric chamber might cost a customer around €2 million. The parts we make could easily constitute €350,000 or more of that total cost. Being next door to Drass has helped our working relationship enormously. In fact, we’re now invested as a partner of the company.”

There’s no question, Subspec is on a roll: “We’re planning to open a UK office and we have lots of ideas for new products,” Mr Marzi explains. “Perhaps the most exciting is the full diving helmet we’re designing. We’re still at prototype stage, but we already plan to do all the machining in-house using a Haas UMC-750 universal machining centre.”

Haas www.haas.co.uk