Brimmond

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Brimmond has over 25 years’ experience delivering bespoke lifting, mechanical and hydraulic equipment and services across a wide range of sectors. Managing Director Tom Murdoch reviewed Brimmond’s achievements, the company’s recent rebranding and the robust plan for growth in conversation with Phil Nicholls.

Brimmond Managing Director Tom Murdoch

Brimmond

has been steadily expanding since 1996, starting as part of a global hydraulic hose repair franchise, later moving into manufacturing. After steady growth, Brimmond Group embarked on a programme of consolidation with Pump Solutions being fully integrated into the group in 2018, followed by the absorption of Rigrun Europe in 2022.

Rebranding as Brimmond, the newly-simplified corporate struc ture allows the business to maintain its focus on quality engineering solutions while pursuing ambitious growth plans.

Managing Director Tom Murdoch joined the family business in 2016 after beginning his career as a graduate engineer with an Aberdeen-based subsea engineering company focusing on subsea tooling and projects offshore, West of Shetland. His many summers of work experience at Brimmond, followed by six years working in the business full-time, meant he was well prepared for what the future held.

Brimmond’s purpose-built facility opened in 2015. “We have a single site just outside of Aberdeen in Kintore, Scotland,” Mr Murdoch said, “It’s a 2.5-acre site with a 1,250 sqm workshop and two 20-tonne overhead cranes. Outside, we have our high-capacity testbed facility where we can test marine cranes, winches, and safely carry out ten sion spooling. Seven years later, it’s still a facility we are incredibly proud of.”

Diverse engineering portfolio

Despite global challenges, including the pandemic, Brimmond has continued to achieve and exceed projected business growth. Current turnover at Brimmond is £6 million, the third year in a row with record numbers. It continues to deliver the highest quality lifting, mechanical and hydraulic equipment and services to clients anywhere in the world through four main divisions: rental equipment; design and manufac ture; refurbishment and service; as well as marine cranes.

The range of services from Brimmond includes the design and manufacture of complete engineering solutions in collabora tion with various partners. Successful projects include power units, hydraulic control systems, pump units and so much more. Brimmond engineers also offer spooling services, and a suite of inspection, maintenance and refurbishment services on a broad selection of machines.

According to Mr Murdoch, one of Brimmond’s USPs is the com pany’s culture of high standards at every level: “It’s the quality from the initial design through to the manufacture. If we aren’t proud of it, then it doesn’t leave the workshop. After all, our reputation is built on the quality of our machinery, not on our year-end results.”

With such a diverse portfolio of equipment and services, Mr Murdoch found it difficult to highlight just a single project to represent Brimmond’s capabilities.

“We have a 175-tonne meter crane in our rental fleet,” he said, “It recently returned from an 18-month contract assisting with the decommissioning of a North Sea platform. Within 10 days, our workshop technicians serviced and load tested the crane and it was back out on hire again, assisting with a concrete mattress decommissioning project.

“Another exciting project was the testing of a 110kW electric hydraulic power unit. This will be permanently installed on a windfarm installation vessel. The unit powers a device used for upending the monopile from the horizontal stack on the offshore vessel into the vertical position, in preparation for installation.”

Ready for renewables

In early 2022, Brimmond was one of just 20 companies chosen for the Fit for Offshore Renewables Programme (F4OR) from the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult. Funded by the Energy Transition Zone

and delivered in partnership with the Nuclear AMRC and Opergy, F4OR will help develop Brimmond as a provider of equipment and services to the renewable marketplace.

“We have just completed our first F4OR audit which turned out to be a rather intensive programme,” explained Mr Murdoch. “This involved a business excellence audit and a company knowl edge audit, all designed to increase Brimmond’s knowledge within renewables.”

Brimmond’s participation in the F4OR programme is readying the company for the growth of the renewables sector.

“From a personal and business perspective, we understand that renewables are absolutely critical to our future,” Mr Murdoch explained. “Aberdeen already has a very strong reputation as a hub for offshore, particularly offshore wind, so we believe we are ideally suited to pursue this opportunity.”

Alongside the rebranding of Brimmond and the accompanying reorganisation, Mr Murdoch was appointed as the new Managing Director earlier this year. Preparing the company for the growth of renewables was just one part of Mr Murdoch’s vision for Brimmond.

“Firstly, I plan to continue to build on the reputation we have established over the past 25 years for building high quality, reli able and safe equipment,” he said.

“Secondly, I plan to lead our new business strategy. Up until now, the business has grown organically. Looking forward, our strategy is to grow our market share in the oil and gas industry and use our transferrable skills and experience to develop business in complementary sectors – marine, defence, aquaculture, and off shore renewables.”

Love for local

As part of this business strategy, Brimmond works in close partner ship with its local network of suppliers. “The north east of Scotland has one of the most impressive supply chains anywhere in the world,” Mr Murdoch explained. “The manufacturing capability and capacity in the region is incredible. We try to source the majority of our products from those around us – both to support our local economy but also to minimise unnecessary carbon miles.”

By relying upon local suppliers, Brimmond enjoys the benefits of a short supply chain. This has cushioned the company from the worst effects of ongoing global issues. While delivery of imported goods has been delayed, Brimmond remains in a good place to ride out this particular storm.

Global supply is just one of the macro challenges facing the energy industry: another area which impacts every business in the sector is fluctuating government policies for the oil and gas industry, compounded by an uncertain political landscape. Current interest rates suggest a looming recession, but Mr Murdoch is optimistic.

“Brimmond is in a stable position because right now, with the growing focus on a safe, reliable and secure supply of energy, we have seen a number of contract wins within our core sector but have also already seen strong return on our diversification into adjacent sectors. Both areas of the business are doing well and it has refocused our attention on the importance of diversification.”

Brimmond’s unwavering focus on high quality engineering is reflected in the make-up of its employees, with a combined 75% of the team ‘on the tools’, either in the workshop or the engi neering department.

Mr Murdoch reflected: “I’m an engineer at heart and love every part of the business. From concept design through to Factory

Acceptance Testing, I find the whole process hugely interesting. There is no better feeling than going offshore and successfully installing a brand-new piece of equipment that you have person ally designed. It’s such a rewarding experience.”

This passion at the helm of Brimmond stands the business in good stead for an exciting future. n