MechChem Africa May-June 2024

Bell Equipment’s expanding European presence MechChem Africa visits the South African facilities of Bell Equipment in Richards Bay and talks to Stephen Jones, director of operations and global marketing, about the company’s expansion into a globally renowned brand and the consequent need to expand its European manufacturing hub for global market growth.

licence by a company called Funky, because Irvine Bell did not have the workshop space to manufacture them. When his sons Gary and Peter joined the company, though, they started designing and manufacturing equipment for themselves, and that put the company on a rapid growth path. “As the crow flies, we are only 10 to 15 km away from the original company, but the first move was into premises in Empangeni, which was a bigger centre than Richards Bay at that time. When the port at Richards Bay started to be built, the com pany began to supply engineering services to the harbour, as well as equipment such as tractor-trailers and front-end loaders,” Jones continues. “We moved into the first half of this factory in Richards Bay in 1984, and we bought the second half three or four years later. We then further extended the facility with a new machine shop in 2001,” he says. Peter Bell had the engineering back ground, which he used to design the in novative machines, while Gary became more commercially-focused, serving as the de facto CEO – and Gary Bell remains the Board chairman to this day. “So that's why Bell Equipment is in Richards Bay. It has nothing to do with the port or where our markets are, it is where the company started. When he passed away,

Irvine Bell was living in the same house he had bought when he first started working here,” says Jones. The German factory Bell Equipment has had a manufacturing presence in Eisenach-Kindel, in central Germany, since 2003, when its facility was initially used for the assembly of Bell’s flagship articulated dump trucks (ADTs) being sold into the European and US mar kets. This factory has been extended quite significantly in recent times as part of a strategy to streamline the logistics involved for producing heavy mobile equipment destined for Northern Hemisphere markets. The expansion began in 2018 with an exten sion to the original assembly line, which was opened 2019. Then in 2022, a nearby factory became available and was incorpo rated to accommodate plans to increase manufacturing at the European operation. “We must do more of the heavy fabrica tion and machining closer to our markets and to our key material and component suppliers. This is a must. Having tripled the size of our German factory, we now have the space we need to do everything we currently do in South Africa, including the heavy fabrication and machining,” notes Jones. Outlining the key advantages, he says the ADT product line accounts for some 70% of Bell Equipment’s income. Of this, two thirds of the sales go into Europe and the US, while the other third remains in Africa. Of the total market, 50% of global ADT sales are in the USA. “By moving more production to Germany, we hope to become more competitive in the European and US markets where we see strong potential to grow our market share,” he explains. Increasing European production capac ity will also relieve some of the pressure on the Richards Bay facility in South Africa. While Bell Equipment will continue to manufacture the volumes for local markets, the resources freed up by the German fac tory will be put to better use to manufacture new products and meet customised local fabrication needs. Locally sourced materi als will be used wherever possible to offer customers in South Africa and surrounding

W hen Irvine Bell, Bell Equip ment’s founder, first came to KZN there was very little development in the area now known as Richards Bay, begins Stephen Jones. “From here to Durban, all you would have seen was sugarcane. After serving in the Second World War, Irvine bought a little plot of land not far from here and started a small engineer ing workshop to support local farmers,” he tells MechChem Africa. The first piece of equipment he designed was a self-load sugarcane trailer, which enabled farmers to grab and load bundles of sugarcane. He then went on to design his three-wheeler cane loader, which was quite revolutionary. And he did this from a small plot of land nearby that is currently used as Bell’s vehicle test track. His wife's brother, Malcolm Campbell, came out to join him and they started ‘ IA Bell and Company ’. In those early years, the three wheelers were manufactured under

Gary and Peter Bell with the company’s first three-wheeler sugar cane loader.

32 ¦ MechChem Africa • May-June 2024