Van de Grijp sets wear-resistant standard.
Productivity improvements in dredging and civil engineering sector by use of durable materials.
(By Wim Schoevers)
Do What You're Good At
That is how general manager Richard Kraaijeveld van Hemert characterises the philosophy of his company:
"VandeGrijp has created such a bond with its clients over almost 75 years that we owe it to them to keep providing the best solutions. With the new wear-resistant Arcoplate they will now be able to operate their hardware even more economically."
In the water-bound civil engineering sector superlatives are becoming ever more common. Not only are giant trailing suction dredges (jumbo trailers) putting out to sea, but mergers between dredging and contracting companies are also showing up strong. |
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Can Van de Grijp, a supply company with 60 employees based in Papendrecht, the Netherlands, keep up the pace? "Yes, we certainly can," says Van Hemert. "Our small scale fits well in a sector where everything is constantly under time pressure. Speed in giving advice, engineering assistance, manufacturing and delivery, our clients can count on all that. We concentrate on what we are good at. Good things come in small packages."
Brought up in the dredging sector - he received his baptism of fire in the '80s on Boskalis Westminster projects in the Netherlands and England - the minimum time-to-site principal is in Van Hemert's blood. "A drawback of upscaling is sometimes that communication lines get stretched. Changes in purchasing policy can also have their effects. Cheapest is not always the best buy, indeed generally not."
"Between work preparation at our clients and their site offices or ships is a path along which every hiccup translates into a loss of time and money. But we straddle that path so our clients can easily call us in to work on finding a solution. We play a part that goes far beyond just the delivery of meters of discharge pipes." |
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Operational risks
Van de Grijp offers its clients a range of products tailored to their needs. That is now also the case in the area of wearresistance of the steel used to manufacture pipes and parts for dredging vessels, investments that operate in probably the most wear-susceptible sector of all.
"Scaling up has resulted in operational risks growing. One of our answers to that is Arcoplate, a new metaling surface layer to steel that gives extraordinary durability. Pipe and machine parts equipped with Arcoplate are far more durable than without it. This leads to cost savings caused by wear and tear (replacement parts, downtime, lost man hours) and keeping stocks of spare parts. By applying Arcoplate we maximise the availability of our clients' plant and equipment. Productivity increases measurably both quantitatively and qualitatively." |
Worst expectations
Arcoplate is a smooth, dense chromium-carbide rich alloy overlay plate manufactured in a patented production process. The steel plate is used in the Van de Grijp company's own factory in Papendrecht in different ways.
For example for pipe pieces, pumps, on-board lines, valves and suction heads. "But such products as truck bodies, bulldozer blades, dragline buckets, shutes and mortar drums are also great candidates," says Reijer Slieker, production manager at Van de Grijp. "Arcoplate is five to 20 times as wear-resistant as the types of steel we process as standard.
"As dealer for the Benelux and Germany we can draw on the research and engineering know-how of Alloy Steel International, the Australian producer of Arcoplate. That means we can ideally apply our customising philosophy in the service of the client."
According to Slieker, tests done by leading dredging companies demonstrated that Arcoplate even exceeded the high expectations. "In comparison with other wear-resistant materials, we saw the life-span of for instance wear prone feed pipes increase significantly. Relatively new to us is the application of Arcoplate on parts of earthmoving machinery."
"A huge amount of know-how and experience in the products of Alloy Steel was obtained in the mining industry in Australia, and that's really a wear-prone sector. Now European earthmoving and sand winning companies can reap the benefits, and they're significant." |
Inviting prospects
Getting back to jumbo trailers, Van Hemert sees inviting prospects for his company in the application of new, durable materials: "Giant dredges are actually huge sailing factories that have to be at work 24 hours a day.
The less time they lie idle for maintenance, the better. But the same is naturally the case for the much more sizeable number of smaller vessels. There are probably about 100 of them operating around the world. They should be a beautiful market for our new products."
According to Van Hemert, prospects for Van de Grijp as supplier is also associated with the growing need for new land in certain parts of the world.
"Think of the huge land reclamation projects in South East Asia such as Singapore and Hong Kong." But also nearer home, in Rotterdam-Europort and along the Dutch coast, there are many plans to put life into the great civil engineering sector of road construction and hydraulic engineering." |
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"In the longer term, there are some major challenges that should reinforce the Dutch reputation as dredging nation par excellence. After all, old habits die hard. The expansion of the Maasvlakte and the recent proposed coastal protection between the Hook of Holland and The Hague would form a start."
"Think back to the '80s, when there was talk of an artificial island off the Dutch coast (North Sea Island Group) and a new airport for London in the mouth of the Thames on Maplin Sands. That was courage, creativity and anticipation from the dredging sector. There is a possibility that people will again believe that prosperity in our region- North Western Europe - will be co-dependant on the availability of new land."
"The borders of the North Sea offer many opportunities for that, and technological modernisation offers the tools. And all that within the bounds of the ecological and environmental standards that we find so self-evident nowadays." For the wet and water-bound hydraulic engineering sector - and so also supplier VandeGrijp - inviting prospects. www.vandegrijp.com |
