Badotherm with 'ENFM heritage'

  'If I had known that we had such a connection…' Badotherm with ENFM heritage in transition to a swinging technology company Remco Donkervoort, former director of ENFM, the First Dutch Factory of Manometers, has recently started working at one of his former largest competitors, the Badotherm company. How did that come about, and how does it work between two well-known member companies of Het Instrument, of FHI? A good conversation with Remco and his current colleague at Badotherm, Sander Posthumus, reveals many instructive things. The market for pressure gauges is not considered the most promising in 2017. The technology is perceived as not very exciting and the international competition is fierce. If you manage to survive in this, maintain a healthy business in the Netherlands and are even able to free up internal technologists for new developments, then you must be doing something right. That's how it is at Badotherm in Dordrecht. The direct reason for the conversation is the acquisition of the high-quality part of the product range, customer goodwill and production technology knowledge from the bankrupt estate of ENFM by Badotherm. “With ENFM, the company that grandfather Donkervoort started in 1906, my father already had to deal with competition from low-wage countries in the 1990s. My two brothers and I have been able to survive by focusing on specialty products, exports and scaling up. In the heyday we worked with two hundred people.” Remco speaks with passion about the former family business. “After that we had to scale back. From 2006 we made a new start based on the development and implementation of modern production technology, with forty people. The fact that things subsequently went wrong in 2016 was actually a very unpleasant set of circumstances.” “Due to the expiration of our leasehold period and the far too high demands that the municipality of Schiedam imposed on us for a new building to be built at the A-location on the A20, we were unable to obtain a new leasehold contract. Then the bank felt it necessary to withdraw our credit, because they did not attribute any value to the collateral at the end of the lease term. The credit was curtailed every month. First there was no money left for innovation and investments. Subsequently, liquidity shortages arose and the turnover level fell below the break-even point. This all happened just as the crisis was turning into a very slightly improving economy.” “ENFM was not allowed to use this improving economy to make the company strong again. For the bank, the operation was successful, but the patient died.” “A typical example of the bank that gives you an umbrella when the sun is shining and takes it away again when it starts to rain,” Sander Posthumus refers to the statement that PvdA parliamentarian Jan Vos took with him from his FHI company visit to Badotherm four years ago and which Vos later presented to Minister Kamp in a parliamentary debate. “Our problem at the time was that China copied our products one-on-one and the major customers could then purchase them much cheaper there,” Remco recalls. After a bankruptcy, other companies come along to see whether the goodwill and remaining business have value to them. “Strangely enough, that was the first time that there was direct contact between the management of Badotherm and ENFM.” Sander Posthumus himself is still surprised about it. “We have been close to each other as competitors (geographically) for a long time, but always in a certain enemy mindset. My colleague Patrick Bastiaan, a member of the family that owns Badotherm, once sighed 'if I had known that we had such a connection with each other...'. Because it turned out. Remco has developed so much knowledge in the field of production technology for manometers. ENFM's strategy was to remain competitive for as long as possible, based on quality and efficient production methods. They were further along in this than we were.” Badotherm itself had chosen a different strategy. The focus was on high-quality manometers, but especially on complete solutions, aimed at assembling separating membranes on pressure instruments. Aided by its own production in Romania, the Dordrecht company managed to continue doing business and grow. “We would not have been able to survive if we had only continued to produce manometers. We are now extremely happy with the knowledge of modern production techniques that Remco brings to us. In addition, the high-pressure manometer from ENFM, for example, fits perfectly with our program and customers, the high-quality segment. Increasingly higher pressures are required, up to 10,000 bar, for example for water jet cutting.” “By the way, your visit and the mailings from FHI have triggered us as a company,” Sander Posthumus confesses to his interviewer. It is the second reference to the company visit with Jan Vos, four years ago now. “We are now proud that we do production and engineering in the Netherlands and we are now in contact with more FHI member companies, on a collegial basis, to work together for the benefit of BV Nederland. We are now looking much more towards R&D. We are spending more money on research and have now released a number of technicians within the organization to come up with solutions for separation membranes. With the arrival of Remco, we have actually also purchased and recorded knowledge and experience, in this case more specifically for the manometers. We also want to continue on that path of development.” Sander substantiates this by referring to the 'white paper' that he recently published online about the use of zirconium and tantalum for separating membranes for level, pressure and differential pressure meters in the production of urea. (See the UreaKnowHow.com website, http://bit.ly/2deBWYz, ed.). And Remco, how do you personally experience the switch? “A forced choice from working for yourself to joining a company is of course no small feat. It's very different here. At ENFM everything was focused on fast, high volume, against minimal margins. There is more peace here, due to the focus on added value. That means less stress, a slightly different pace. Now I also have the space to do everything properly and organizationally, including in terms of documentation, for example. To be honest, at ENFM we were a bit behind the times, out of necessity.” It is a wonderful example of how within the FHI family, or within the FHI ecosystem as we call it today, setbacks are overcome together and new promising developments emerge from the ashes.