The Blackwood Way

Founded in 1946 as a general foundry, Blackwood Engineering began specialising in the production and supply of counterweights and castings during the 1970’s. Today the company has established a reliable reputation for the supply of high-quality, cost-effective counterweights and other ferrous casting products to the global construction equipment sector, as well as the material handling and lift truck industries.

Construction Worx talks to Blackwood Engineering’s, Dominic Connor, Sales Director about the company and the journey from humble beginnings to a global success…

Explain in layman’s terms what Blackwood Engineering manufacture and where your products might be used?

A: Blackwood Engineering is a global supplier of castings and counterweights to industry leading heavy machinery suppliers.

However, we are not purely just a supplier of these products. We are a total solutions provider and a strategic partner for all our customers with a range of additional facilities and services.

The Blackwood Way is what defines us and what sets us apart from our competitors. The Blackwood Way is all about providing quality castings to our customers worldwide. It is the added value we bring to the table and stops customers going direct. Our products are used on a wide range of heavy machinery such as excavators, telehandlers, access platforms, forklifts, material handlers, loaders and many other types of heavy equipment.

What lead Blackwood Engineering into counterweight casting?

A: The company diversified and expanded its product range in the 1990’s to include ductile iron and steel, whilst also starting to focus on more complex engineered castings. Over the years, Blackwood

Engineering has established a reliable reputation for the supply of high-quality, cost-effective counterweights and other ferrous casting products to the global construction equipment sector, as well as the material handling and lift truck industries.

Where do you source your materials for casting products?

A: We have a range of partner foundries we work with all throughout

China. Our customers’ requirements are continuing to evolve, we require a selection of partner foundries with different expertise and capabilities to deliver a quality product. We also started sourcing from India in 2015. India offers a viable long-term alternative manufacturing option. Unfortunately, it became unviable to continue our UK foundry a long time ago.

What are the current challenges faced by construction machinery OEM’s in the current climate?

A: There was of course a very challenging period in the early days of the pandemic as orders came to a standstill for a couple of months. But thankfully, since the fourth quarter of last year, the demand has bounced back well and has since been much stronger than anticipated. Going forward, the market demand looks to be very strong and next year is projected to see further increases so it’s positive news and there are lots of new projects to be excited about also. The main challenges we have faced this year in terms of rising commodity costs, unprecedented shipping costs and congestion will continue for the foreseeable future.

There are reports of a massive steel shortage – how has this impacted on Blackwood Engineering?

A: Rising commodity costs this year have also driven up the cost of our products and we are working hard to manage this as best we can. We work closely with our customers to ensure any delays and shortages are communicated and managed in the right way so machine builds and schedules are not affected.

How does Blackwood Engineering meet its customer demands?

A: Aside from providing the product itself, our main value-added service to our customers is the level of safety stock that we hold for them at our sites in the UK and Belgium. This allows us to meet short-term demand changes so that our customers can capitalise on short-notice order changes from their customers. Our main internal production process is our gloss painting and we have recently invested further into our gloss painting facilities in the UK and Belgium.

We provide supply chain management, project engineering and quality support, warehousing, gloss painting and deliver daily on a just-in-time basis in a full range of colours and finishing options, tailored to our customer’s specific needs.

Where do you export in the world?

A: Our products are exported to our customers’ locations across the globe. We work closely with our customers to deliver them a quality product wherever they are in the world.

What is the key to success for exporting? Can you give our readers any advice?

A: Blackwood Engineering has been exporting their products globally for many years. What started out as a simple supply chain between the foundries shipping to Blackwood Engineering’s head office in Wales has since evolved and now global exports take place on a weekly basis, exporting around 1500T per week between China, India, Europe, North America and South America.

As we have grown and expanded our customer base worldwide, finding suitable partners to manage the sea freighting and logistics has been a key element to the success of the supply chain.

A partnership with reliable freight forwarders has proven to be a critical element in the success of the company. Working very closely with our chosen freight forwarders both in the UK and at our other supplier locations ensures our products get shipped in the most cost effective, efficient manner ensuring the supply chain is maintained.

What sets Blackwood Engineering apart from its competitors?

A: Our focus is on ensuring the highest level of service and reliability to provide long term mutually beneficial partnerships with our customers. As discussed previously we are more than just a supplier, we help our customers with a range of SCM, Logistics,

Quality, Finishing and Warehousing options tailored to their specific needs. We work with some of the industry’s largest brands and our team are hugely experienced onboarding new customers and new products.

We work closely with any prospective customer to first and foremost assess feasibility. If the product is feasible and we can produce it our team work to identify the most suitable partner foundry to produce this product on-time and on budget.

What’s the future vision for the company?

A: Despite the challenges we have faced we are still a growing business. There has been a significant investment in our people and developing them. The businesses sites are also growing with a brand-new office facility located in Blaina, South Wales. We have also invested heavily in existing sites in Aberbeeg, also South Wales, and Dilsen-Stokkem, Belgium.

Our customers are constantly looking for ways to improve the machines from both a performance and aesthetic standpoint.

Counterweights have become a lot more complex over the years and now involve more intricate styling to reflect the modern look of the machines that the OEM’s produce. The counterweight function has evolved from being a basic ballast to now often being an important part of the chassis and overall modelling of the machine. We want to continue developing our products and services to help our customers build the machines of tomorrow.

Blackwood Engineering’s, Dominic Connor, Sales Director

Visit https://www.blackwoodengineering.co.uk/