The vision of… Dennis van Arkel

A little bit of Italy in Alphen aan den Rijn: the Benelux subsidiary of the Brevini Group, a global player in the power transmission industry, resides in this Dutch town. Dennis van Arkel, commercial director, is responsible for the commercial activities of the Benelux branch.

Brevini was founded in 1960 by the brothers Renato, Corrado and Luciano Brevini in Reggio Emilia, Italy. They have developed a series of planetary gearboxes in combination with hydraulic motors or E motors for cranes, winches and conveyor belts. In the 1970s, the Brevini brothers decided that they wanted to serve the world with subsidiaries instead of dealerships and started their international network. On 1 November 1979, the Dutch office was opened. Today, the group counts more than 1,700 employees, of which 71 are working in the Netherlands, and 26 subsidiaries worldwide, with the latest addition the office in Turkey. Van Arkel: ”The turnover in 2012 was € 430 million. Our president’s goal is to reach € one billion in five years. We know that this is not possible with our current companies, so acquisitions in the coming years are not ruled out. It is still a family-owned company and selling is not an option. Brevini wants to belong to the top five worldwide in its business.”

In-house

The Brevini Group consists of the companies Brevini Power Transmission (mechanical transmission), Brevini Fluid Power (hydraulic components), Brevini Winches (hydraulically/ electrically driven winches) and Brevini Wind (components for the wind industry). The latter is based only in the United States of America and Germany. Brevini Group Benelux is run by a management team of four. ”I see it as an advantage that we have the same management for 

Passing on knowledge is important

both Brevini divisions in the Benelux. It means we can handle the projects together. Within the industry, there are not many companies that have all disciplines in-house.

Except for Bosch Rexroth, all of our competitors depend on third parties for primary transmissions or hydraulics. Our products are used in the maritime and energy industries, agriculture, construction and transportation industries, just to name a few. Also amusement rides use our products and the owners are happy that we offer a 24/7 service.”

Passing on knowledge

Van Arkel started at Brevini in 1981, just graduated from his mechanics and hydraulics studies. He remembers: ‘‘I arrived in a small office, with only two employees at that time. They were looking for a sales engineer to visit customers and sell the product. The interview went great; I was hired and never left. I was able to grow within the company and continuously met new, interesting challenges involving dynamic clients. There is a lot of mutual trust and respect between the head office in Italy and ourselves. We are often asked to share our knowledge and knowhow with other subsidiaries. So why leave an employer when he puts so much trust in you? Passing on knowledge is important, but a difficult task as I have 32 years of experience. That is not something you just hand over quickly. One way of doing it is taking younger employees with me to clients, first showing them how I do it and later letting them do it by themselves. Of course, cruelly said, sometimes I have to bite my tongue, but this is the best way to teach them.”

The Brevini Group is known for its planetary gearboxes, which are a lot more compact and lighter than conventional gear boxes, which can be delivered combined with prime movers. The stock and service centre for Northern Europe is located in Alphen aan den Rijn, where about 10,000 gearboxes per year are assembled. Also, the winches division is very successful, says Van Arkel: “We construct the winches ourselves and started to make custom-made winches. The demand grew, so we decided to establish a separate division. Our strength are the small to medium-sized winches for the maritime industry. There are other parties that are specialised in the big winches.”

Difficult to predict

“Among others, we can count Palfinger, IHC Merwede and SAS Gouda/Winches amongst our customers. Recently, we contributed to Allseas’ Pieter Schelte and we are involved in talks with several companies for projects in the dredging industry”, says Van Arkel. ”An example is Damen Dredging, who is working on a new prototype dredger as an answer to the IHC Beaver. However, the dredging industry is fairly quiet at the moment. Up to about four years ago many materials were built, but now assignments are staying behind. We do profit

Mutual trust and respect

from refits, though. The offshore industry, on the other hand, is still investing. The Dutch offshore industry is renowned worldwide and Brevini profits from that, too. There are some projects regarding pipelaying and handling equipment coming up, where we expect to contribute to, but forecasting is difficult. The industry is very reserved. Our turnover in 2012 was the same as in 2011, so we cannot complain. It is difficult to predict how 2013 will turn out, I expect it to be similar to 2012. I hope our turnover can grow with 5% to 10%. I am moderately positive about this year though, because everyone keeps so quiet about their predictions for 2013. This is difficult for us as the factory in Italy wants to know what we expect to need this year, but with everyone being so reserved, that is hard to tell. On the other hand, the agricultural sector is doing unexpectedly well, the demand for food is growing and the agricultural sector in the Benelux adapts to that with high-tech machines. We have received many orders from them within that industry.”

Knowledge Day

In September 2012, Brevini, together with their partners KTR Benelux, Kolmer Electromotoren and others organised the Knowledge Day 2012.

With several presentations, visitors received an insight in the field of transmission technology, hydraulics and engineering. Van Arkel: ”This day was a big success. With our partners, we already discussed the possibilities of a sequel this year, probably at Kolmer or KTR. We started this initiative because we were not happy

We develop new technologies in cooperation with universities

with the Industrial Automation & Drives event in Utrecht. After this event in Utrecht it was decided to merge with the event Het Instrument in 2015, but that is not our target audience and it does not correspond with our sector. Therefore we are thinking of not attending, but rather continue with our own initiative.”

Developing new technologies to improve the products is important to Brevini. Van Arkel explains: ”We work closely together with universities in Munich and Bologna to develop new technologies. With these new technologies, but also with new materials, we try to get more out of our gear boxes and to improve their efficiency. Steps to make sure we reach our goal to be and stay in the top 5 worldwide in our business.”

Gail van den Hanenberg