Bartondale Engineering
Hirwaun, Rhondda Cynon Tâf

Engineering a new future

A Valleys heavy engineering firm has secured its long-term future after boosting its customer base by more than 30 times in less than a year.

Management at Hirwaun-based Bartondale Engineering have put their renewed success down to the aggressive use of eCommerce, which has helped the firm develop sales and improve its customer service.

Explains John Hale, Company Chairman: "Bartondale Engineering, in common with most heavy engineering firms, has a long history of serving the steel processing supply chain. We could see the downturn coming, and secured assistance via a Fast Track Regional Selective Assistance grant from the National Assembly in May 2002 to buy Durmech Engineering, manufacturers of coil handling machines."

"The success we have achieved since we added the manufacture, maintenance and repair of this machinery to our portfolio of services would not have been possible without eCommerce."

Phil Lewis and John Hale of Bartondale Engineering and Nigel T Packer of Opportunity Wales watch as (foreground) Craig Morris machines a one tonne shaft destined for Thailand.

Following the acquisition of Durmech, Bartondale Engineering has generated an additional £400,000 of sales, boosting their current turnover to £1m. However, use of eCommerce to improve communications, sales and customer services in recent months has seen the firm add orders to the value of £500,000 since December and a further £6m of potential contracts in their enquiry book.

"Before buying Durmech we had never exported before", adds Mr Hale. "But in the space of 10 months we went from 10 customers to 300, and are continuing to locate and supply new customers through the eMarketing campaign we are developing with help from Opportunity Wales."

Bartondale Engineering currently employs 20 people, and if fresh business continues to materialise, is hopeful of increasing staff numbers still further. Currently exporting to customers on every continent bar South America, the firm has identified this as a potentially lucrative new market.

                                                                               Phil Lewis and John Hale of Bartondale Engineering and Nigel T Packer of Opportunity Wales watch as a one tonne shaft destined for a Durmech-supplied coil-handling machine in Thailand is manufactured.

Nigel T Packer of Venture Wales, the Opportunity Wales delivery partner for Bartondale’s local area, explains: "By using eMail, the Internet and the new www.durmech.com Website, the management of Bartondale Engineering have opened up vast new markets."

"For instance, since joining the government-run Trade Partners UK trading portal, the firm is now in with an excellence chance of landing a series of Asian contracts that would literally double their turnover overnight and create four new jobs."

"This success is graphic representation of the power of eCommerce, helping to identify new customers, locate new markets and agents and to compete on level terms with their larger international competitors in Italy and Germany."

Extending their use of eCommerce, Bartondale Engineering has recently started using eMail to issue tenders to its supply chain. Comments Managing Director Phil Lewis: "We are encouraging our supply chain to make much wider use of eMail. Now instead of having to spend hours faxing details to every firm in our supply chain, we can send a single eMail with an attached AutoCAD plan that shows exactly what we want."

"This not only saves time and money but adds to our tendering process too, ensuring that our suppliers receive the exact specifications we need and removing the need to spend quite so much time on the phone trying to compare drawings."

The return on investment from eCommerce has been extremely impressive, says Mr Packer, with Bartondale spending less than £2000 so far on the design of their new Website and doubling their turnover by return.

"So far we have used a series of Opportunity Wales implementation days to reconstruct the Durmech Web site to make it more customer focussed", he adds. "We have also registered them with various international trade directories, trade portals and search engines, which have in themselves highlighted new tendering opportunities worth many millions of pounds", he said.

www.durmech.com