Clippard Europe is a subsidiary of Clippard Instrument Laboratory, Inc, a third-generation family-owned and operated company. Clippard is in its seventh decade of supplying miniature and customized fluid power, motion and process control devices to the Scientific, Medical, Dental, Analytical, Semiconductor and general Industrial markets. The company understands the need for precision, reliability and purity in your critical applications. They ensure that every solution meets the highest standards of quality and performance by 100% testing all products before they reach the customer.
Interview with Dirk Thomas, Managing Director at Clippard Europe.
Can you introduce your company and the core industrial technologies or services you provide?
Dirk Thomas: We are a third-generation, privately-owned American manufacturing company with a rich history of innovation in miniature pneumatics. Our key technologies center on high-resolution flow control, precision pressure control, and ultra-low leak valves. Over the past decade, we’ve increasingly focused on medical and analytical applications. Founded in 1941, we’ve been active in Europe since the 1970s. Our European headquarters, Clippard Europe, is based in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, serving customers across the continent.
What are some of the most complex challenges your clients face today, and how does your company address them?
D.T: Clients face growing demands for extreme precision in smaller, integrated systems, especially in high-throughput or automated environments where drift or failure isn’t an option. They also deal with strict purity and media compatibility requirements, particularly when handling aggressive gases or sensitive fluids. In continuous-run or vacuum applications, the key challenges are long-term reliability and low leak.
We meet these needs with compact, high-resolution solutions like our Cordis controllers and ultra-reliable valves like the EV series, engineered for low leakage and over a billion cycles. When clients come with a complex problem, we work with them to build custom manifolds that integrate entire pneumatic circuits into a single, leak-tested assembly. This approach simplifies the system, eliminates error points, and ensures consistent, high-performance operation over time.
How do your solutions contribute to increased productivity or efficiency in your clients’ operations?
D.T: Our products help clients improve accuracy, reduce downtime, and speed up production. With devices like the Cordis controller, clients deliver exactly the media needed, cutting waste and boosting yield. Long-lasting components like our EV valves reduce maintenance needs and keep machines running around the clock. And by consolidating complex pneumatic setups into custom manifolds, we simplify assembly, lower labor costs, and help clients bring products to market faster.
What strategies or technologies does your company use to ensure long-term value for your customers?
D.T: That’s an excellent question that gets to the very heart of our company philosophy. Long-term value for us is about much more than just selling a product: it’s about making sure our customers’ investments pay off over years of real use. Take the EV valves we mentioned: their simple “spider” design enables over a billion cycles, so devices keep running longer with less downtime and fewer replacements. But to find the most durable solution, what you really need is good collaboration. We often have our team of engineers work hand-in-hand with our customer’s design teams, helping them pick the right parts and designing custom assemblies that simplify their production and improve performance. Plus, because we handle almost all manufacturing in-house, we maintain strict quality control. All of this together means our customers get reliable, efficient solutions that stand the test of time.
Can you share a recent project or case study where your solution significantly optimized a complex process?
D.T: A great example is our work with a manufacturer developing a next-generation medical device that required the precise electronic blending of several gases. Their original setup used multiple valves, regulators, sensors, and lots of tubing, making the device bulky, tricky to control, and leak-prone. We teamed up with their R&D team and came up with a sleek solution: three of our Cordis Electronic Pressure Controllers, one for each gas, integrated into one custom acrylic manifold. This replaced the tangled web of parts with a compact, plug-and-play module that was over 60% smaller. Not only did this shrink the device footprint and boost precision in gas control, but it also cut assembly time from hours to minutes and improved reliability by eliminating dozens of potential leak points. It’s a perfect illustration of our process and the value of collaboration: we took a complex problem and used our expertise to deliver an integrated, simple system that helped our client get their innovations to market faster and more efficiently.
In what ways do you tailor your solutions to meet the specific needs of different industries or sectors?
D.T: Every industry has its own priorities, so we don’t believe in one-size-fits-all. In niche industrial sectors like packaging, printing, or textiles, speed and durability are non-negotiable. We work closely with clients to design robust, application-specific assemblies that simplify integration and stand up to constant use.
In medical and life sciences, the focus shifts to purity, safety, and precision. We use special materials like PEEK and PTFE, manufacture under cleanroom conditions, and offer media isolation valves that keep fluids away from moving parts. For portable devices, low-power valves help extend battery life, which is crucial for patient mobility.
And in the analytical space, where precision and repeatability are everything, we deliver ultra-stable pressure control and tight leak specs.
How does innovation play a role in the development of your optimized solutions?
D.T: Our innovations stem from real-world engineering challenges: when a customer comes to us with a problem that an off-the-shelf solution can’t solve. These projects push us to rethink what’s possible. What we develop for one client then often ends up improving our standard product lines.
A big part of finding new solutions is material innovation. For example, using PEEK in our Media Isolation Valves was a deliberate choice to improve chemical compatibility and purity. Innovation also increasingly means integration for us. For example, our Cordis controllers combine valves, sensors, and digital controls into one intelligent, plug-and-play unit. Such a device provides precise, closed-loop pressure control without requiring our clients to become experts in complex control theory.
What specific long-term benefits do your clients typically experience from adopting your solutions?
D.T: Our clients come to us for precision components, but over time they gain much more:
- A stronger brand
Fewer failures and warranty claims boost product reliability and reputation.
- Lower lifetime costs
Less maintenance and smarter media use (thanks to solutions like Cordis) keep operating costs predictable and low.
- Faster innovation
We handle the complexity of pneumatic design, so our clients can focus on core product development.
- Supply chain peace of mind
Our vertical integration ensures consistent quality and avoids costly redesigns.
What feedback have you received from clients regarding productivity improvements or ROI after implementing your solutions?
D.T: Clients often see faster assembly thanks to our custom manifolds, which replace hours of work with a plug-and-play solution. They also report reduced operating costs from more efficient use of air, gas, and energy, thanks to our ultra-low leak valves and precise controllers. Reliability is a major plus: fewer breakdowns, longer maintenance intervals, and even faster cycle speeds thanks to rapid valve response.
How do you ensure your solutions remain adaptable and scalable as your clients’ challenges become more complex?
D.T: We build for what’s next. Our modular product platforms, like the EV series, let clients scale performance without redesigning their systems. We often design in room to grow, adding capped ports or extra features, so future upgrades are simple, not disruptive.
Digital control adds further flexibility: the Cordis controller allows many updates via software rather than hardware. And because we stay closely involved and manage our own manufacturing, we can adapt and scale right alongside our clients.