John Thompson

COMPANY PROFILE

2015

John Thompson Africa

www.johnthompson.co.za | +27 (021) 959-8400

company profile

Generating success Editorial: Alex Montgomery

With roots stretching back to 19th century England, John Thompson is the first company to manufacture an industrial boiler in South Africa and is the region’s premier boiler and environmental solutions company.

Celebrating 60 years after that first boiler was produced last year with a huge factory expansion, we spoke with Divisional CEO, Andy Abbey, who explained to us the day-to-day operations of this industry leading company.

John Thompson manufactured South Africa’s first industrial boiler in 1954 and over sixty years on the business – now the power division subsidiary of ACTOM, Africa’s largest manufacturer and distributor of electrical equipment – is the go-to name in South African boiler manufacturing.

Last year saw the huge R30m expansion of its facilities to mark the seminal anniversary – facilities which are already the largest and most modern heavy engineering manufacturing facilities in the Western Cape. An extra 2,000 sq metres of Greenfield site adjoining the company’s Bellville plant was added , including a new workshop for the manufacture of industrial watertube boilers, incorporating new machinery, including three 15 ton lofting capacity cranes and a furnace corrugating machine.

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John Thompson focuses on delivering sector-best boiler and environmental solutions, and the record is impressive. In 60 years it has supplied over 4000 firetube, 100 watertube, and numerous waste-heat boilers to customers throughout southern Africa and around the world.

HISTORY With roots going back as far as 1824, John Thompson has a 140 year history in the boiler industry and originates over 9,000 km away from its present day Cape Town head office, in Bilston in the north of England.

The company’s namesake, William Thompson, began his career building iron boats and it wasn’t until 1875, after a move from Bilston to Wolverhampton, England, that he branched out into the manufacture of Lancashire boilers. From

John Thompson Africa

this moment the company’s product development progressed organically into economic-type boilers, into water-tube boilers and from there into steam generators for nuclear power stations.

In 1935 John Thompson (Wolverhampton) first came to South Africa and through an agency agreement soon established a promising order book.

Due to the market potential in South Africa, the UK parent company established John Thompson South Africa in 1937 as a sales and contracting organisation, further establishing installation, erection and manufacturing capabilities in 1946.

The rest, as they say, is history and following a series of mergers and acquisitions that served to grow the business and establish it as an industry leader in the local and export market, the company was acquired by Alstom and became a division of the company in 2001, becoming a division of newly

formed ACTOM in 2009. Last year, John Thompson celebrated 60 years of boiler manufacture in South Africa – marked by its huge factory expansion near Cape Town.

THE BUSINESS OF BOILERS Today, John Thompson is the first name in boiler and environmental solutions and serves the power generation market and industrial markets such as sugar and paper production. The company, both independently and in partnership with international technology partners, designs, manufactures and services industrial water tube and fire tube boilers with steam outputs of up to 320 t/h, as well as related products such as heat transfer and air pollution control technology.

“Our business is boilers and environmental equipment such as filters, and our objective is to take

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company profile

“Our business is boilers and environmental equipment such as filters, and our objective is to take industrial watertube boilers to the power industry in Africa” PAGE 4

industrial watertube boilers to the power industry in Africa,” says Divisional CEO of John Thompson’s Divisional, Andy Abbey.

John Thompson‘s industrial watertube designs include coal fired boilers with travelling grate and CAD spreader stokers and fibrous fuel-fired boilers with CAD spreader stokers for dual-fuel firing, as well as pinhole and dump grates, CFB, industrial oil/ gas-fired and waste-heat boilers.

Package firetube designs include coal-fired boilers with chain grate stokers, wood-fired boilers with fixed grates, oil/gas-fired boilers and custom designed waste-heat boilers.

“We manufacture industrial boiler components and deliver them to anywhere in the world. We install usually the case here in South Africa - while outside South Africa we send our service engineers along with the components, or engage others to perform the installation work. Whatever is the most cost-effective.

We also undertake a lot of extensive engineering and studies for South Africa’s industrial sector.”

John Thompson designs and builds two core type boilers; package, and industrial water tube. “A selfcontained boiler built going up to 21 tons an hour and built at the Cape Town factory is erected in a

John Thompson Africa fairly short period of time and in two or three months will be generating steam. We sell this type of boiler all over the world.

“Industrial watertube boilers, which again we design and manufacture in-house, are bigger, and work up to 350 tons an hour of steam and to 82 bar pressure or even 105. The components such as tubes, drum, and header are taken to a site and erected, usually over a period of 18 months to two years.

“It’s a massive on-site undertaking, and we work on sites ranging from a sugar or paper mill, to numerous power stations including Matimba, Komati and Tatuka.

“Much of our business from a financial point of view is with Eskom, not in the supply of new plant though we do supply new environmental equipment - but with the provision of maintenance services,” Abbey explains.

A GREEN FUTURE More and more the manufacturing industry, and in fact industry in general, is investing in ways of lowering energy consumption and reducing costs by promoting sustainable business practices. John Thompson provides equipment for the cleaning up of emissions and with over 20,000 installations in South Africa, offers a competitive range of equipment serving air pollution control, gas cleaning, dust control, product collection and powder processing applications.

The company continuously invests in its extensive R&D programme and with the current renewables revolution playing out globally making waves in South Africa also, alternative fuel is a major focus area for the boiler company.

“We do a lot of biomass burning - we don’t only burn coal or gas. Whenever a customer wants us to investigate different fields we are very happy to do so,” says Abbey.

Particularly tailored to fibrous-biomaa and coal-fired co-generation applications, the development of the MicroGen watertube boiler by John Thompson is a response to the burgeoning demand for green solutions.

It is a small, medium-pressure power boiler with a steam output of between 20 and 25 t/h dependent upon fuel type.

Configured to facilitate manufacture of the pressureparts in large subassemblies, the MicroGen can be containerised for transportation, minimising expensive and time consuming site construction work.

“The whole Green issue is very important for us,” says Abbey. “Being Green means getting the most out of the coal. Coal is a bad word in the minds of many, and from a

carbon discharge viewpoint, it’s certainly not desirable.

“However at this point in time the whole world burns coal and the objective for us is to get as much out of the coal as is practically possible. And for this reason we deploy engineering capabilities such as computational play dynamics to extract the last bit out of the coal and ensure the amount needed to generate the maximum steam out of a boiler is the absolute minimum.

“Together with other technology partners we also install De-SOx equipment to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions, and are currently installing the low NOx burners for Eskom at the Camden power station - again to remove NOx gases from the atmosphere.

EFFICIENCY AND EXCELLENCE “Among the reasons why we compete successfully with boilers built elsewhere - China for example - is because customers like the efficiency of our boilers, with maximum steam output from minimal coal.

“And also because they are long lasting - we have fully operational boilers that are now 35- 50 years old marvellous pieces of equipment and as always with John Thompson, made to the very highest quality standards,”

Experts in inspection and non-destructive testing services We offer a wide range of inspection and NDE services, presently supplying the petrochemical, power generation, solar, mining, marine, chemical and construction industries.

57 Williams way, Racing Park, Table View, Cape Town 7441 P O Box 60194 Table View 7439 Tel: 021 556 4884 Fax: 021 556 6941 e-mail: lance@ritc.co.za & nick@ritc.co.za

www.ritc.co.za PAGE 5

company profile

explains Abbey.

As a company, John Thompson has a significant focus on skills retention and development, Abbey explains it is essential that all employees are well trained and up to date on technology and techniques.

The company’s in-house training centre provides specialist and advanced education and the company also fosters close relationships with universities and engineering houses.

“We have a lot of graduate engineers and we also take people from technical colleges who have technical knowledge but need the practical exposure which we give when we take them into our organisation. We do a lot of that.”

This dedication to staff development has definitely had a positive effect on the company – staff turnover

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“We are southern Africa’s premier boiler and environmental solutions company, and we will be building and growing on that great heritage and achievement”

John Thompson Africa

within the organisation is extremely low. “Most of the guys have been with our organisation a long time; 35 or 40 years with the company. Many started their careers with the organisation and have stayed here. The people reporting directly to me have got something like 200 years of experience.”

Currently, the African market provides 40% of John Thompson’s export market, with a further 40% in Asia. “We focus on markets where we see growth and where there are requirements for installation.”

With such a high level of expertise and a long-standing reputation in the industry, John Thompson is set to expand its footprint into Africa in the coming years, with development capacity in Mozambique and Zambia, and the possibility of growth in Zimbabwe.

TARGETING SUCCESS “Up to now we have been selling mainly to the sugar mills and the paper and steel industries. Going forward, our intention is to sell more to the power producers.

“We can supply the boiler and deliver a turnkey island, and we believe a lot of IPPs will set up power islands in Africa and we very much see this as an opportunity.

“This is a fantastic company, and on the industrial side in South Africa and across the continent I see us as the leader in terms of boilers sold - by far in the case of package boilers - and also maintenance.

“We are southern Africa’s premier boiler and environmental solutions company, and we will be building and growing on that great heritage and achievement.”

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