64 Cover story

ISSUE 64 - JULY 2010 > COVER STORY

Nearly 50 years experience, particularly in sheet metal applications, combined with a strong commercial performance is driving a business transformation, which Goebel is intent on ensuring will further strengthen its position in the blind riveting market, while retaining its established reputation in threaded fastener technology.

Goebel was founded as a small threaded fastener distributor in 1979. It was “a hard beginning” - an initial capital of just 20,000 Deutschmarks meant working hard until the business could move into a small rented commercial warehouse in Düsseldorf. While money may have been in short supply, knowledge and experience were not. “My uncle, who co-founded the business with my mother,” explains Marcel Goebel, “helped to run a family owned manufacturing company producing self tapping and machine screws from the 1960s until he, his father and brother, decided to sell it and go separate ways”. Mr Klaus Arens continues to play an active role in the Goebel business. Within a few years the business had specialised: focusing strongly on screws with assembled washers – a niche in which few demonstrated a strong capability.

Marcel Goebel joined the company fifteen years ago, followed a few years later by his brother Dennis. That, too, was a time of transition for the Goebel business. The company had outgrown the Düsseldorf warehouse. In 1989 Goebel bought a warehouse and offices in Erkrath, a few kilometres to the East of the city centre. “The company had established an excellent reputation in the market, almost entirely through word of mouth recommendation,” recalls Marcel, “but had no computers, no catalogue, and no structured customer relation systems.”

Its supply base was also undergoing a radical change. “Previously we had sourced most of our products from Italy, but this was the time when the global market opened up and we organised the first steps, not all successful initially, to source product in Asia.”

Today, around 90% of the range is imported from Asia, primarily through close working relationships established during that transitional period. Goebel, though, continues to carry out a series of quality critical processes, in particular washer assembly and coating, under its direct control in Germany.

Until the late 1990s Goebel’s core ranges were self tapping and self drilling screws, primarily with assembled washers for construction and insulation sheet metal applications. Twelve years ago the company began to diversify, introducing a range of standard blind rivets. “Now”, says Marcel, “Goebel has become one of the leading European suppliers of the full range of blind rivet technology - high strength blind rivets, multi grip, sealed type, blind rivet nuts and a comprehensive range of setting tools for these products”.

The first Erkrath site still accommodates purchasing, sales and accounting offices, together with Goebel’s day-to-day picking inventory and goods despatch operation. That is set to change over the next year as Goebel begins the complete refurbishment of a recently-purchased 13,500 square metre warehouse and office complex close-by; part of which is already in use for receiving goods, inspection, bulk storage and packing, and for the directors’ offices.

Today, Goebel publishes a comprehensive programme of well-designed and informative catalogues. The self drilling and self tapping screw catalogues, which provide details of a range of surface coatings, including special head colours, and options for assembled EPDM or polyamide washers, have been joined by similarly detailed publications for standard and high strength blind rivets, rivet nuts and both pneumatic and manual setting tools.

Goebel’s reputation is not solely based on the variety and range available from stock, although a commitment to prompt despatch and next day service domestically has proven important.

“We have developed fastening technologies to meet the market requirements precisely and to overcome difficulties we saw users experiencing on site,” explains Dennis Goebel. “For example, we improved on the DIN 7976 specification by making the hex head higher and ensuring a well defined slot. That made the screws more user friendly – stainless steel is, of course, non-magnetic so the head modifications ensure a tighter fit in the driver socket.”

“It was similar with bi-metal self drilling screws,” adds Marcel. “We saw users drilling holes, using a carbon steel screw to try to form a thread and then trying to drive in the stainless steel screw. Not surprisingly, it would often stick and take a pair of pliers to get it out.” In 2000 Goebel won the Innovation Award at the ISO Wiesbaden Fair – Europe’s largest fair dedicated to insulation material and technology. “We won the award through the introduction of a 4.2 x 16 bimetal self drilling screw,” explains Marcel. “Previously the market had supplied only 5.5 and 6.3 diameters and not recognised the opportunity for the smaller screw. The very short length was also extremely important in order to avoid penetrating the insulation layer behind the stainless steel sheet.”

In 2008 Goebel returned to take another ISO award, this time for a stainless steel self tapping screw. “The market needed a screw with a pointed tip for use in punched holes,” says Marcel. “Using a self drilling point was not effective. We found a way to make a stainless steel screw three times harder than the normal stainless material on the market, without losing the anti-corrosion qualities, which would provide exactly the right solution.” Not surprisingly, this specialised screw sector remains an important part of the Goebel business: four automatic washer assembly machines provide a one million unit per day capacity.

Supplier quality is a paramount issue – throughout both threaded fastener and riveting ranges. “We know we have to be constantly vigilant,” says Marcel Goebel, “to ensure that there is no inadvertent slippage in the quality of products we receive, even from long standing partners.”

A Schenk tensile and shear tester sits opposite a Kesternich testing cabinet, in which sulphur dioxide replicates the harshest industrial atmosphere. “We use the cabinet to test whether the screws are stainless steel,” explains Dennis, “and also which parts of the bimetal screws are stainless.” A drilling test rig is, of course, essential and washer dimensions are checked to ensure good assembly as well as performance in application. Increasingly important, now, is the capability to test blind fastening products – Goebel has extended its original core of blind rivets to include extensive programmes of specialised rivet nuts, high strength and structural rivets. “As well as breaking strain we need to carry out a series of specialised test to ensure particular characteristics, including grip range, peel characteristics and sealing performance.”

Since 2008 packaging has been carried out on an automatic Weighpack line, capable of packing one million pieces an hour, and specially designed for Goebel – an example is a vibrating platform below the filling chute to ‘shake down’ rivets before the lid is sealed. For efficiency the footprint of the boxes is limited to two sizes, with height variation accommodating the different products and quantities. Packaging is either the distinctive blue Goebel box or plain white labelled ones for distributors. The company is around two-thirds of the way through a programme to mark all products with an EAN code. “It is another big investment,” says Marcel, “but important for our own efficiency as well as customer service.”

Recently Goebel launched a full programme of both pneumatic and manual insertion tools for its blind fastening range. The pneumatic tools are supplied by a highly reliable European manufacturer; hand tools are produced in Asia and can be supplied either in the Goebel brand or in customer’s own livery.

40% of Goebel sales are already exported. The company has a small subsidiary in the Netherlands, a sales office in France, and a stocking partnership in Hungary. It will shortly also be represented in Poland. “We aim to service the mid range customer base,” says Marcel, “where we can ensure a fair price related to the volume of purchases – that gives an incentive for growth with Goebel. Our immediate goal is to progress the development of our new building so that we can move all our operations onto one site, eliminate some of the inefficiencies we currently have to manage around, and provide an even better customer service.”

“We are looking forward to the Fastener Fairs at Budapest and Stuttgart – we will have some exciting new programmes to introduce to Fair visitors next spring.”

“The market is very complex but we know it is full of opportunities for a company like Goebel and with the investments we have made and the completion of our re-organisation there is no doubt we will be ready to make full advantage of those opportunities.”

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