Weir Minerals Europe’s Tony G. Locke talks to Patrick Smith about the company’s robust targets to grow its business after investing heavily in its European market reach, with attractive emerging geographic markets such as Turkey, North Africa and Kazakhstan offering great potential for the firm’s high-quality range of equipment for the global mining and mineral processing sectors.
The market town of Todmorden made news when residents decided to grow fruit and vegetables in public places, asking people to help themselves to the produce.
Set in the confluence of three steep-sided valleys in the Pennine mountain range, the town in West Yorkshire, northern England, has a long history of manufacturing.
Indeed, one of its more unusual creations is the sculpture of a dog, now in a local park, which was created by local sculptor David Wynne in 2005, and which gained a reputation for bringing luck to anyone that touched it.
Importantly, the work was cast in the foundry of
Mines, plants and quarries across Chile, Finland, Canada and China are just some of the destinations where the equipment from the plant has ended up.
Over 90% of Weir Minerals Europe’s revenues come from overseas sales, and the business serves customers in more than 20 countries, including many of the world’s biggest mining and industrial companies.
In among Weir’s offices, pattern shops, machine shops and warehouses in Todmorden stands one of the site’s original buildings, which dates back to 1893 when a small local private foundry was established, manufacturing parts to service the cotton mills, the local Yorkshire Post newspaper reports.
Todmorden is now the regional head office of the award-winning Weir Minerals Europe, a leading manufacturer of slurry pumps, which are used in a host of heavy industries, but mainly in the mining and aggregates industries. They are used to transport rock ore slurry across what can be hundreds of kilometres and can also be used in many other areas from tunneling to pumping sugar beet.
Managing Director of Weir Minerals Europe is Tony G. Locke, who is well known in the industry. Locke joined Weir in 1997 as the works engineer to implement a large capital upgrade.
This was followed by a move into general management and taking up the position of operations director in 2006.
“In 2008 I took responsibility for the service side of the business, introducing service centres throughout the region,” says Locke.
“Having gained many years’ experience within operations and the commercial acumen of developing the aftermarket business, I was appointed managing director in 2010 where the geographical expansion, underpinned by customer centricity, has been key to the strategic growth.”
He makes daily tours of the plant checking on progress and chatting with employees about all sorts of subjects.
In April 2013, the company won the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise for the second time (the first was in 2008), being granted this in recognition of the significant growth it achieved in international trade over the previous six years.
“Obviously winning the Queen’s Award and meeting the Queen was a moment to be proud of, but I would say growing the business and developing the talent of tomorrow is so rewarding, especially when you see people flourish, becoming more confident, contributing to the business, and ready to take on new challenges.
“The Queen’s Award is a stamp of excellence recognised not only in the UK, but also internationally,” says Locke.
“A combination of hard work, technical expertise and the ability to adapt to changing market conditions has allowed us to continue to build our international presence and become a supplier of choice for customers in every territory and sector in which we operate.”
In recent years, in order to develop closer relationships with its customers across Europe, Weir Minerals has invested heavily in its service presence, launching new service centres in Germany, Benelux, Scandinavia, Ukraine, Hungary, Spain, Turkey and Poland.
It has also recently upgraded its production facilities at the Todmorden site with a £5 million (€7 million) expansion to increase capacity, improve efficiency and reduce lead times to customers.
The Todmorden foundry heavy bay expansion project incorporates a semi-automated moulding loop. The new building, which adjoins the existing foundry, houses a state-of-the-art production system for heavier metal castings used to build larger pumps.
While the company regularly launches new products, new configurations for its Gemex belt-tensioning system were recently incorporated into updated versions of the company’s advanced centrifugal slurry pump, the Warman WBH centrifugal slurry pump and the medium-duty Warman MU pump.
They were the first combined pump-and-tensioner packages to be added by Weir Minerals since the integrated package was designed for the company’s Warman AH pump in 2013.
The Gemex system was launched in the European market in 2012 after Weir Minerals acquired Sweden-based Gema Industri.
By integrating a hydraulically-adjustable and mechanically-lockable motor platform onto the pumps’ bearing assemblies, the system removes the need to realign the motor each time the drive belt needs to be replaced, reducing the downtime required from hours to minutes.
“All too often we see the performance of our pumps compromised by poorly-adjusted belt-drive systems. When properly tensioned and aligned, a belt system is one of the best ways to drive a pump. However, the need to replace the belt periodically is a major drawback, requiring downtime and increasing the possibility of incorrect tensioning or alignment, leading to poor performance,” says Locke.
Weir Minerals Europe covers all of Europe, excluding Russia, but includes North Africa and the Central Asian Stans of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Todmorden is the main manufacturing facility for the region, and it primarily produces the core Weir Minerals slurry pump ranges.
“We have a second manufacturing site in the UK at Yateley [county Hampshire, southern England] which manufactures the Linatex range of rubber products.
“The European region is diverse in terms of the range of applications we cover. Our primary markets are in the mining and aggregates industries, but we also have capability in coal-fired power and general industrial markets.
“The market is challenging, particularly in mining, with low commodity prices leading to a reduction in capital expenditure and consequently delays or cancellations in new projects. Aggregates markets remain significantly behind the 2008 peak, with weak growth in the Eurozone continuing to impact on the construction markets aggregates are supplied into.
“Our products are designed to provide the lowest total ownership cost, and our materials technology is globally-renowned. The expansion of our service network allows us to offer a range of maintenance and service packages to our customers designed to keep the equipment they buy from us in peak performance.
“We are constantly working on new initiatives to ensure our products maintain the lowest total ownership cost for our customers. In Europe, we will continue to develop our service offering to move towards providing preventative maintenance solutions for our customers, and help reduce downtime in their critical processes,” says Locke.
Late in 2014, the Weir Group acquired the
“Our recent acquisition of the Trio business demonstrates our commitment to providing complete critical process solutions, starting with the comminution process.
“Our range of comminution equipment now encompasses crushers and screens, as well as our Enduron high pressure grinding rolls (HPGR), and combined with our existing capability for critical process applications and service support network, ensures we can provide a complete solution for our customers.
“We are always looking for new innovations and technologies to ensure we continue to provide lowest total ownership cost solutions for our customers. Part of our product strategy means we are continually looking to improve existing products and launch new products to meet changing needs and market requirements.”
While Western Europe continues to provide the largest opportunity for Weir Minerals Europe in aggregates markets, the company also sees opportunities throughout the region, particularly in emerging geographic markets.
“We do have a number of potentially very powerful emerging geographic markets within our scope – Turkey, North Africa and Kazakhstan, in particular, have significant scope for growth.
“We take the emerging countries in our region very seriously. We now have a direct presence in the field in place in Turkey, North Africa and Kazakhstan which will enable us to develop the range of services we offer in these regions significantly.
“We have robust targets to grow our business across our product range and geographic scope, and in doing so become the supplier of choice for critical process equipment to mining and aggregates sectors by providing our customers with complete solutions.
“We are always looking for opportunities to grow our business and enhance our product and service offering to our customers. However, our current focus is on integrating the Trio business into Weir Minerals.
“In recent years, we have moved to a direct presence in Spain, Turkey, Kazakhstan and North Africa.
We also made the acquisition of the Gema business in Sweden that strengthened our presence in the field in Scandinavia, as well as opening service centres across our region. We recognise that our commitment does not end with the supply of equipment, and in providing local support to our customers we are able to better meet their needs."
