It was in 1929 that O. T. H. Beier, a young pioneer living in Germany, made a life-changing decision, going against the wishes of his family by leaving his home and travelling to Durban to establish himself as a wool merchant. Little could Beier and his family have realised that with this decision he would be sowing the seeds for what would become a business legacy that continues in 2013.
Two years after his arrival in South Africa Beier received an offer from Storm and Company to manage their new scouring plant. Beier took on this new challenge with relish and within two years not only was the plant exporting to Europe but Beier himself reached agreement to take over the plant from Storms.
In essence this represented the true birth of Beier Industries, a business that expanded rapidly as Beier capitalised on the vast potential for industrial development in South Africa. What followed was the adoption of a policy for diversification and expansion that continues to this day.
It was this policy that helped give rise to Beier Envirotec. Operating from the headquarters of Beier Industries in Pinetown, Beier Envirotec is recognised as being one of the foremost producers of technical textiles, specialised media and filtration products in Southern Africa.
“Under the leadership of our Managing Director, Wolfgang Beier, who represents the third generation of the Beier family, everything we do here is related to engineered textiles and solutions in some form,” explains Operations Director, Warren Sachs. “What makes us unique is that our philosophy involves targeting niche, speciality markets and those that require specific development. Our entire business model revolves around developing new products that are focused on markets such as filtration, engineering textiles, geo textiles, medical textiles and a range of synthetic media.”
Beier Envirotec's combination of expertise and experience in the Southern African subcontinent ensures that it is able to offer its customers the latest technology and world class service, while constant investment in equipment and people enables it to guarantee product quality of the highest standard and industry leading performance.
“Our core aim as a business,” Sachs continues, “is to be recognised by both our internal and external customers as the designer and supplier of choice when it comes to engineered textile solutions and services. To put this into context, what we are doing is not only supplying the filtration products to help power stations and other facilities to meet emissions requirements, but also providing a team of people who visit the plant in question and maintain the filtration equipment. There they perform tasks such as changing out filter bags, or measuring plant performance and proposing changes, all of which allows us to provide a complete, technically based turnkey solution.”
In addition to the imbedded strengths of the business there are also several external factors that are helping to drive the growth of the company today. One is the uptake throughout the developed world, particularly in core markets like Europe and China, of tighter environmental legislation regulating emissions from factories.
South Africa meanwhile continues to grow at a steady pace with the constant demand for power resulting in the construction of a new generation of power stations. “In recent times we have also shifted our focus towards the medical side of the business,” Sachs highlights. “This side of the company has grown in line with the increasing population of the country.”
Another facet of Beier Envirotec, and indeed Beier Industries as a whole, is its commitment to social responsibility. “One of the things we have done for some time now,” Sachs states, “is sponsor an underprivileged school in the local vicinity. From here we strive to take at least one learner from their final year into university. We then look to employ these graduates at the end of their studies.”
Beier Industries has also adopted a novel way of boosting skills development in the local area by employing a chess tutor. “It is the shared view of the board of directors that one of things we should assist with in the community is the development of young people who have the ability to problem solve and chess is the perfect tool for that,” Sachs says. “In addition to chess we also run additional maths lessons for students on weekends. We do this in partnership with an Indian firm who have developed a form of teaching that encourages the use of tablets and other technology devices.”
The last year and a half has seen the company undergo what can be best described as a complete manufacturing reorganisation. This undertaking has seen Beier Envirotec streamline its processes, install new equipment in a number of manufacturing areas and broaden its skills set by employing new people in both its testing and quality areas. At the same time the company has made a few changes to its management structure across various departments in order to improve efficiency across the business.
This is an exciting time for the company with it working on at least five new, highly novel products. This falls very much into line with Beier Envirotec’s core focus going forward and that is to achieve growth through new developments.
“We were one of the first textile plants to receive ISO:9001 and ISO:14001 accreditation, and are now pushing forward with gaining ISO:13485,” Sachs concludes. “Furthermore, we are looking at expanding our export operations. We are well aware that a large portion of our future growth will come from exports and thus we want to significantly grow this part of our business over the next three to five years. At the same time however we continue to ensure that as a company we continue to ensure that our business is correctly structured in terms of current legislation to drive growth in South Africa.”
Written by Will Daynes, research by Paul Bradley
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