‘If I knew that we had such a good vibration...’INDUSTRIËLE AUTOMATISERING

Remco Donkervoort, former director of ENFM, the (“Eerste Nederlandse Fabriek van Manometers, freely translated as

the ‘First Dutch Factory of Pressure gauges’), has recently joined Badotherm, which has long been considered a competi-

tor. How did he come to this decision and how can two of the oldest manufacturers in the pressure gauge industry work

together? A good chat with Remco and his colleague at Badotherm, Sander Posthumus, will tell us.

IA

Badotherm in transition with ENFM-legacy to a swinging technology company

COPY KEES GROENEVELD PHOTOGRAPHY HENK TUKKER

Anno 2017, the market for pressure gauges

is not the most promising one. The technology

isn’t considered as very promising and the

international competition is killing. If you know

how to survive in this world, and can keep a

company healthy and even invest in innovative

and new developments, you must be doing

something right. This is the case with Badotherm,

located in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. The reason

for this interview is the recent developments

concerning the bankruptcy of ENFM, and

Badotherm taking over the goodwill and the

continuation of several products in the high

quality segment.

‘With ENFM, founded by my grandfather

Donkervoort in 1906, my father already had to

fight competition of low-wage countries in the

90’s. My two brothers and I could keep it up by

concentrating on special products, export and

increase in scale. In the glory days we worked

with over two hundred people.’ Remco speaks

with passion about his former family company.

‘After that we had to reduce in size as business

became more difficult. From 2006 we did a

company restart and continued the company

with only 40 employees, focusing even more on

the high end of the market. That it still ended in

2016 was due to an exceptional chain of events.’

By that time our long term land lease ended,

the local authority made too high demands on

our new building, which we planned to build.

We didn’t get a new ground lease contract.

By the same time, the bank rejected our loan

request, because we didn’t have a new land

lease contract yet. Every month our reserves

decreased. First there was no money for

innovation and investments. Next ENFM came

in a cash liquidity squeeze, the sales dropped

further under break-even. And this all took place

at the time the economy was picking up and

looking more promising after the harsh years

since the crisis ‘It wasn’t possible for ENFM to

use this economic recovery to make the

company strong again. For the bank the

‘a bank gives you an

umbrella when the sun

shines, and takes it back

as soon as it starts raining’

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SIGNALEMENT 02/2017

operation was successful (they had their loan

back), but the patient had already died.’

‘A typical case, where a bank gives you an

umbrella when the sun shines, and takes it

back as soon as it starts raining’, supports

Sander Posthumus by describing the situation.

‘The ENFM problem started a long time ago

when Chinese companies copied our products

identically and all the large clients could

purchase way cheaper there’, recalls Remco.

After the bankruptcy of ENFM in 2016, also other

companies came by to see if there was any

goodwill or other things that may have value

for them. ‘Crazilyenough that was the first

time there was direct contact between the

management of Badotherm and ENFM.’ Sander

is still surprised by this. ‘As competitors we have

geographically (only 30 kilometers apart) worked

close by for a long time, but always with a

hostile attitude. My colleague Patrick Bastiaan,

a member of the family ownership of

Badotherm, sighed one time: ‘if I only had

known that we had such a vibration…’.

Because that turned out to be. Remco has

developed a lot of knowledge regarding product

engineering for pressure gauge manufacturing.

It was the strategy of ENFM to compete as long

as possible with this based on high quality

products and advanced and efficient production

methods. They were more advanced than we

were concerning this.’

Badotherm chose a different strategy. They

focused on high quality pressure gauges,

but even more so on the instrument solutions,

focused on the assembly of diaphragm seals

to pressure instruments, both pressure

transmitters as well as their own pressure

gauges. Supported by the efficient production

location based in Romania, Badotherm

managed to carry on a strong business and

further growth. ‘We also couldn’t have survived

if we produced pressure gauges only. But

now, we are very happy with the knowledge

of modern product engineering Remco brings

us. It is a lucky stroke…certain products have

a perfect match with our company, such as the

high range pressure gauges of ENFM that fits

our product line and clients perfectly. Higher

pressures are required more often as processes

are more demanding, even up to 10.000

bar, for example used for waterjet cutting.’

‘Apart from all this, your visit and the mailings

by FHI have triggered us’, confesses Sander

to his interviewer. ‘We are proud of our

manufacturing production and engineering

roots in The Netherlands and see the benefits

of collaboration with other FHI members and

we are getting closer to supporting each other.

In the meantime, we continue to put more

resources on research and continue to develop

new solutions for our products. With the arrival

of Remco we insourced and captured

knowledge and experience that is not easily

available, in this case specific for pressure

gauges. We want to continue in this way of

‘FHI triggered us for our new strategy’

development.’ Sander substantiates this by referring to the ‘white

paper’ he recently published about the application of zirconium and

tantalum of diaphragm seals for level-, pressure- and differential

pressure gauges in the production of urea. (See the website of

UreaKnowHow.com, http://bit.ly/2deBWYz).

Remco, how did you experience the change to Badotherm yourself?

‘A forced decision from working for your own company to another

company is not something to be taken lightly. It’s all done in a

different way here. With ENFM we were focused on fast, high

volumes, against low margins. Here it’s calmer, by focusing on

the added value and where quality is never compromised.

That means less stress, a different pace, for better quality and

performance. Now I have the time to do everything well and

organized, with documentation for example. To be honest, with

ENFM we were taken over by events, out of necessity.’

This is a valuable example on how, in the FHI family (or the FHI

eco system as we call it nowadays), misfortunes of one company

are absorbed by others in the FHI family, and new opportunities

rise from ashes.

SIGNALEMENT 02/2017

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