BRIGHT NEW WORLD

Thos Begbie

Rossouw is joint CEO of Thos Begbie, global specialists in the manufacturing of smelting equipment for the mining sector with a R350-million a year turnover. “Each competitor in the world market place has niches but when it comes to a company solely dedicated to smelting equipment the big seven dilutes to two – ourselves and an American competitor. We have the bigger plant and we believe we deliver more

equipment. We like to say we are the leader.” Recent and current major contracts span seven global

regions and include a China-based project with engineering consultancy Hatch to build the largest calcium carbide furnaces in the world, three Australia-based smelting assignments for mining giant BHP Billiton, and a R40 million order for Chile. “The open communication, willingness and commitment of the team members involved were key to the successful outcome,” says a Hatch executive, underlining Thos Begbie’s belief in the cruciality of developing a strong network and well-manage relationships. “For us the customer is always right,” says Eugene Rossouw.

“A large foundry, heavy engineering works and pipe manipulation divisions gives us the versatility to cope with the demanding mining and pyrometallurgical industries’ requirements. And we have a unique situation – and one of the reasons why we can do what we do - a full assembly floor.

“We can do a full mock assembly of the equipment so that when the entire furnace is fully made up we can match mark all components which can then be shipped in sequence and re-erected in sequence on site. No dribs and drabs; you know that every single part fits together perfectly.”

Serving an industry where operational crisis blow up in a second, Thos Begbie is on the emergency list of some of the biggest mining names in twenty countries. Rossouw’s colleague and joint CEO Edwin Dreyer says the team’s around-the-clock availability along with ISO 9001 rating and South African Bureau of Standards accreditation, are high among its success factors.

“A simple phone call gets us going immediately and we’ll be in full production within hours, especially if we’ve manufactured similar items before and have the patterns and designs on hand.

“This ability to process emergency orders is what gives Thos Begbie a competitive edge, says Dreyer.

The company is 125 years old, founded by Glaswegian immigrant Thomas Begbie in the year of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee and the publication of the first Sherlock Holmes story, ‘A Study in Scarlet.’

Engineering for the mining sector is a precession industry. It’s tough and it’s heavyweight; mining and smelting operations remote and hard to access. As Eugene Rossouw and I talk, just minutes away large pieces of smelting equipment, some weighing 50 tonnes, are being assembled at the Thos Begbie plant at Middelburg, in the Mpumalanga South Africa. Within days they will be loaded at Johannesburg Airport 167 km north and flown on to Adelaide, South Australia.

Eugene Rossouw

Thos Begbie

For Thos Begbie it is a study in durability, excellence, innovation and adaptability. “In 125 years this business has moved through many different phases,” says Rossouw, 58. “Twenty years ago and employing nearly 600 people in our plant, we didn’t produce one iota of the money value turnover we have today. We saw the futility of competing where low wage rates were a major factor in competitive pricing and began closing down ‘grunt’ factories and focusing on a highly specialised and niched market. And this has been part of the success of the business.”

In a tough industry, another and softer philosophy for success, and one flowing from the company’s long and proud history - the encouragement of family involvement and development.

“When you look at the employees in the company, more than anything else you have the family generations. One particular family here has four generations who have worked for the company, with a great grandson a qualified artisan. His father works with him in the plant and his grandfather and great grandfather started here. In total probably ten members of the associated family have worked for Thos Begbie. And this makes us a family company to a degree I think unique. And it makes people extremely passionate about the business.

“I’ve looked at so many businesses that are impersonal towards their employment structure, people are just workers, and they don’t know them or care about them. When they become part of the family you start caring about them.”

In a world market sector where commodity prices are uniform and competition is decided by quality and value-added, cheap labour countries are not a threat says Rossouw. “When I cite our competing countries I never mention places like China, or India. They are always a potential threat, but the labour percentage of the price is not high. A massive casting costing maybe 30,000 dollars may take ten hours of work, and if a Chinese was earning one eighth of the labour rate of one of our workers, it would translate into a 20 dollar advantage in a 30,000 dollar piece of equipment. That’s not where it is.

“So Germany, America, South Korea – a new entrant and not a cheap country - there’s a plant in Italy and we’ve seen a small upstart in Brazil. Then there is us, and we are all competing in the same market and play off the same ball game - price.

“For more than seventy years we have been making equipment for a particular industry and a very very niche market. This market is not under threat because of the very nature of the product. As always the threat is that somebody comes up with a better methodology.”

The other threat is the price of copper.” Making the equipment in high purity copper is very expensive. Today copper sits at $7,500 a tonne, and you are making bits and pieces of equipment weighing in excess of a tonne at a time”

With electrification in power generation troubled South Africa scheduled to double – Rossouw sees increased opportunities of using high conductivity materials with Thos Begbie moving into other related copper and aligned products.

“The foundry industry is not the easiest in the world. Times are tough and you’ve got to want to be successful and do things properly every single day. So we have total commitment to quality – we never compromise. Otherwise you will be bitten – every time a coconut.”

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Bambanani Health and Safety specializes in the marketing, distribution and support of premium PPE (personal protective equipment), specifically targeting the Mining Industry. Bambanani Health and Safety primarily distributes the Sperian range of PPE. Sperian is the world leader in the development, design and manufacture of well-known, trusted brands.

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Electrode Assembly fully assembled ready for crating

Thos Begbiewww.thosbegbie.com +27 13 246 1134

Written by Mike Dunbar

www.littlegatepublishing.com