THE INTERVIEW | JIM GOODALL
Pewag remains one of the world’s oldest and prominent manufacturers of high-quality chains and components. “I like some structure, so I initially leant on HQ in
Austria to learn about the product. The autonomy can risk creating some disconnect, which can create some complacency and that is what I observed in the US team, which I felt lacked a sense of urgency,” Goodall explains. “Some of the communication was slow, and the company had a culture that might work very well in other countries but was not well-suited to the US, where you need structure, urgency and responsiveness. We are a distribution company, so we need to get products out of the door quickly. I had a lot of work to do tightening up procedures. I found that there was a lot of tribal knowledge within the teams that had built up over time and that needed to be shared across the organisation.” Major change was required, but it could not be at the expense of disruption to the business. Goodall likens it to flying a plane and having to fix an engine in mid-air because you can’t stop the plane and take it apart. Fortunately, some changes were relatively easy to make. For instance, going back to the manuals to learn how to use software to its maximum capability was a big step forward. “We streamlined procedures and got everyone
to learn how to use software properly, but we also had to update the culture. We want to work in an environment where people are less likely to blame each other for what goes wrong and more likely to help each other get things right.
28 Summer 2026 |
ochmagazine.com “Challenging complacency was very important.
It took a long time to create a culture where people no longer had a fear of bringing up problems and addressing them, and where the value of helping people to understand problems was realised.” This cultural shift helped pewag USA get a two- week shipping time down to 48 hours. Needless to say, customer satisfaction improved significantly. Then a market opportunity opened up that Goodall knew had come at the perfect time for pewag’s more efficient team to exploit. Two competitors – The Crosby Group and Kito Corporation – merged in 2023 to form Kito Crosby, which has since been bought by Columbus McKinnon. With any merger, there are always issues to resolve to bring different organisations into alignment, and the well-document post- merger issues that affected the combined entity’s logistics operations left Goodall and his team with an opportunity to showcase the more efficient processes they had instilled in the organisation. “When a competitor could not ship products for a while, we were able to capitalise on that and get more business from some customers who were looking around for alternatives. Since then, we have seen three solid years of growth. We made changes and then the market gave us an opportunity, and the sales team was able to take advantage of that.
“As a small, tight company we can really control our supply chain. The company is all privately
owned, and I have a direct line to every manager, so I can get product moved quickly. Also, we stock more than any other pewag facility, so we always have product that is available.”
Finding a home in the hoist industry Although Goodall is a relatively recent arrival in the lifting industry, he has quickly come to appreciate how it operates and what values lie at its core. Though it serves the needs of many industrial operations, it still rests firmly on personal relationships and the culture of many companies can still be likened to a family. “I like that it is extremely clear who our
customers are – the rigging shops. Some of them are what we call the ‘mom and pop’ rigging shops, though we also work with more regional or national customers. There is a lot of consolidation across the market, and we have spent a lot of time making relationships with the smaller rigging shops, and as they are bought out by the bigger players, we still keep those relationships,” says Goodall.
Some of pewag’s smaller customers have been swallowed up by bigger fish, but the people with whom Goodall’s team has worked will often remain firm advocates for what pewag can offer, and their voices are sometimes heard within the larger conglomerates. “Last year, we really shifted that focus, and we now have an entirely new sales team focused on
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