COVER STORY Rawlplug Reloaded
In 1911 John J Rawlings developed the first wall plug, creating a brand that won worldwide recognition. Seven years ago Koelner acquired a company that, truth be told, had survived rather than prospering during years of indifferent ownership. It has taken time, as Radoslaw Koelner is the first to acknowledge, but 2013 sees “Rawlplug Reloaded”.
five years was a pretty difficult period for the whole group.” Of course, the European construction market plunged in 2008-9. The impact on Koelner was unquestionably painful and a clear source of frustration to Radoslaw Koelner. In the context of the market as a whole, though, an eight percent slippage in revenue has to be reckoned impressive. From 142 million euro sales in 2009, the group recovered rapidly to a better than 2008 157 million euros in 2010. By 2011, with sales at 168 million euros, the group could look back over a decade in which it had grown twelvefold. Behind the scenes, Koelner wrestled
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to restructure its manufacturing. Having bought the Rawlplug company, Koelner progressively gained control of the Srubex fastener plant, in the south east of Poland. The group already owned the Globus tool factory, also in Poland, and had been injection moulding wall plugs and insulation fixings in Wroclaw since 1993. “Between 2008 and 2010 we had gone a
long way to completing the reorganisation of our manufacturing,” says Radoslaw Koelner. “More recently we started to
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make major investments in our steel factory in southeast Poland, which is one of the largest factories of its type in Europe.” Established under Soviet rule in the 1950s the plant had by necessity to be self-sufficient. It continues to carry out the complete fastener manufacturing process from annealing, cleaning and drawing the wire, to cold heading, threading and secondary operations, heat treatment, coating, inspection and packaging. It also retains a deep reservoir of engineering expertise, reflected in its in-house tooling capabilities and, less obviously, in a remarkable capability to extract the best performance from all its machinery. Now the group has ordered two new
itting in the conference room at his group’s headquarters in Wroclaw, Radoslaw Koelner is as candid as always. “The last
heat treatment lines, which together with two existing modern lines, will allow the removal of older lines while maintaining capacity of more than 3,000 tonnes monthly. Other major investments are planned for 2013, aimed at substantially enhancing the plant’s already extensive multi-die cold heading capabilities. In house Cr6-free electrolytic zinc and Deltatone lines, and accreditation to ISO TS 16949 attest to the plant’s commitment to further develop its role in supplying the automotive assembly operations that now surround it. “You could say the automotive industry has come to us in recent years,” says Radoslaw Koelner. “Around 40% of Europe’s car production, measured in units - which is what counts for fasteners – is now in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.” Close to 20% of output is currently delivered at zero PPM tolerance levels – again, investment is planned to increase the number of final inspection machines. Relocation of Rawlplug production
to Łańcut means the plant also plays a strategic role in the group’s construction fixings business. As well as manufacturing the Rawlplug anchor programme the plant produces concrete screws and steel components for other fixings. Inconsistent
Fastener + Fixing Magazine • Issue 79 January 2013 4.F120
quality from Asia has also made Radoslaw Koelner produce high tensile chemical anchor studs for the group. Łańcut is big – a 23 hectare site, with
8 hectares under roof. Wroclaw is also extensive with currently around half of its 9 hectares under roof but with plans to further expand its logistics capability. This already includes automatic, high storage warehousing, vital to a central distribution operation at the heart of group inventory worth more than 50 million euros. Production in Wroclaw centres on injection moulding and the more recently introduced chemical anchor development and production. There are currently 112 injection moulders and the plant operates on a four shift, 24/7 basis with automation levels such that one operator can manage eight machines. Moulds are produced and maintained on-site and flexibility and rapid changeover have become key attributes. A five-year programme to totally upgrade the 270 moulds in use has now been initiated. The site also houses a large- scale assembly and packaging operation, with fully automatic high volume packing into boxes, blisters, skinpacks and Shurpacks, supported by manual processing for smaller volumes. Wroclaw is now also home to the
development and production of chemical anchors. There are nineteen capsule and nine cartridge filling machines and a development laboratory. The latter is strictly off-limits to visitors and Radoslaw Koelner barely contains obvious personal excitement to an intriguing, “we have some very special developments, which you are going to hear a lot about in the New Year.” The Globus plant in Bielsko Biala
is smaller but has generated an unquestionably large reputation for the quality and performance of its circular saw and jigsaw blades, and in particular its milling tools, which are selected worldwide for critical and highly challenging applications including in the oil exploration and extraction field.
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