Insight

Here we speak to Magnus Karlsson, vice-president global business development at Titgemeyer, about how the group has looked to develop its value proposition through a targeted acquisition strategy and a commitment to meeting the ongoing needs and challenges of its customers. 

Titgemeyer Group is steeped in history and a leader within fastening technology. Can you give an overview of the group and its structure, as well as the different fastening elements it is able to develop, manufacture and sell? 

“As a manufacturer with over 700 employees, at 16 individual sites across Europe, we offer a wide range of innovative products, including the market leading Starlock^® push-on fasteners, one of the world’s widest range of circlips and retaining rings, as well as high performing lockbolts, plus several other fastening components and adapted assembly systems.

We have developed this product portfolio by strategically acquiring companies that bring extended and supplementary solutions to the portfolio – enabling us to offer a comprehensive range of new product categories to our customers. 

For instance, in 2019 we acquired Cirteq, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of circlips, and before that we acquired Baker & Finnemore, the original manufacturer of the Starlock^® push-on fastener. We also added the fastening assembly technology manufacturer Rivetec, which recently has been rebranded as Titgemeyer Tools & Automation.

These strategic acquisitions have created a number of synergies that have strengthened us in the marketplace, such as an expanded fastening technology expertise; a much broader customer platform; and a more flexible production capacity.

This is evident at our production site in Glusburn, UK, where we have combined the production of the Starlock^® push-on fastener and the range of circlip products, which has created many synergies and made us a lot more flexible with our production and capabilities. 

Other production sites include another facility based in Tipton, UK, which produces our range of lockbolts. We also have more production sites in Germany that focus on non-fastener related production, as well as our site in the Czech Republic that includes our high-end engineering team that focuses on assembly tools and automation systems. 

A key benefit of these European production sites is that it enables us to have the whole production process in our own hands – for instance we have our own tool shop.  Individual tools enable us to create bespoke Starlock^® and circlip designs for the most complex and demanding applications. The tooling is often where the knowledge lies within a product, so having this capability in-house is very important to us. 

In addition to our manufacturing capabilities, we also have sales subsidiaries that cover almost every European country. This includes our Austrian sales subsidiary that covers Austria, Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia – with relevant languages spoken by the team; a subsidiary in Denmark, which has branches in Sweden and a newly opened branch in Finland – helping us cover the entire Scandinavian market; a Polish subsidiary that is responsible for the Polish and Baltic markets; a Turkish subsidiary that covers the Turkish and Arabian markets; as well as subsidiaries in the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands and the UK. The rest of the European countries and the global markets are covered by our international sales department at our headquarters in Osnabrück, Germany.” 

What is Titgemeyer’s current business strategy? What targets has the group set for itself? 

“We have a very strong brand and foothold in Europe and one of our main goals is to continue building on this legacy as a manufacturer, by unifying our operations and leveraging very strong vertical industry concepts – including the extended solutions added from our acquisitions and to capitalise on the synergies that it brings. With these strategic initiatives, and our strengthened position as a manufacturer, we also see tremendous opportunities to expand our presence in the global market, growing with both current and new customers.

In fact, with increased international initiatives, we are thrilled to be witnessing a growing demand from the regions of North America and Asia. We see great potential for our solutions in these regions, due to their significant market volumes, and we are excited about the opportunities they present. 

For every market, what enables us to stand out is that we are able to offer an extensive expertise within our field – in combination with some unrivalled fastening technology solutions – tailored to meet tomorrow’s challenges and trends.

A good example of what makes us stand out is our unique ‘one stop shop’ solution, offering both our type of fasteners, together with installation solutions that can optimise and automate assembly processes. This full solution is a major opportunity for customers to save costs, reduce risks and will also help meet potential future challenges with the lack of skilled workers on the assembly line, as well as capacity fluctuations and improving the quality of the installation.”

What role does innovation play within Titgemeyer Group? How important is innovation to you as a business? 

“Innovation is definitely of a strategic importance for us. By continuously inspiring customers with innovative solutions, as well as working close together with their R&D and design engineers in developing smart solutions, we can stay ahead of the game. 

In fact, one of our success factors of us going to visit customers is that we are able to inspire them with innovation examples. We do not just visit companies with a catalogue and say ‘this is what we manufacture’. We explain to them that whilst some fasteners might be commodity products, what we supply at Titgemeyer goes beyond. We offer both standard fasteners and innovative, tailored solutions that are constantly updated to meet the specific needs of our customers. 

A prime example is our range of newly innovated installation tools – the RL-2 Series – which were present on our stand at Fastener Fair Global. These are improved installation tools for blind rivets and blind rivet nuts, as well as lockbolts, that can be used for a broad range of applications – providing a higher pulling force, faster installation speeds and improved handling. 

At Titgemeyer we are also able to work with customers to provide solutions to the changing demands of different markets. For instance, with the EV transition within the automotive sector over the last couple of years, manufacturers had to lower the weight of the vehicles, with one option being the decreasing of some steel shaft dimensions within the vehicle. However, a smaller shaft dimension, with a harder surface, makes it more difficult to find the friction required to keep the fasteners in place. With that in mind, we worked on a new design of the Starlock^®, which still works on the same principle – providing all the same benefits – but has been redesigned to include a more aggressive contact point when compared to the original Starlock^®. This increases the pull off force in some cases – with almost four times the strength. This is only one example where we can help our customers meet their specific challenges within the automotive market, whilst still ensuring safe connections.

Another good example is when it comes to the standard lockbolt, which includes a pin and collar to be securely pressed together. At Titgemeyer we have introduced the next generation of that system called the DeltaBolt^®, which keeps the same principles, but by changing some of the designs, we have been able to increase the tensile strength by up to 50% in some cases – compared to the standard lockbolt.

Thanks to the knowledge and experience within our team, especially spearheaded with our application engineers, we can inspire and provide these types of solutions and help customers meet the challenges and trends of the markets.”

What are the current challenges within the fastener market and where do you see opportunities for the future?

“As I see it, in addition to the global political dynamics, one of the biggest challenges is to continuously develop, communicate and leverage our expertise in developing smart solutions with a lower total cost for the applications – ensuring that we always stay at the forefront of this as a European manufacturer, no matter where the customers are in the world. 

Our aim is to continue to provide this substantial value of expertise within our field, positioning ourselves as the preferred choice over manufacturers of commodity fasteners in low cost countries. For this purpose, we are investing heavily in new ways of developing and communicating our fastening technology expertise – through new and improved digital training and communication platforms. One example of this is our in-house video studio – that takes both our internal, as well as external training, demonstrations and communication to another level of learning and understanding. 

In regard to future opportunities, in my role I am actively exploring new markets, identifying trends and spearheading strategic initiatives that will have a significant impact on the overall direction and growth of the organisation. 

The current world situation has made this very challenging, as mid and long-term planning and investments are no longer as straight forward as they used to be. As the business landscape has become more and more complex, and less predictable, I believe it needs an even higher level of adaptability and agility, to meet rapid changing needs. In light of this, I am a strong advocate for digitalisation, as a real game changing opportunity. Digitalisation empowers us to gain instant insights and communicate faster and more effectively with the customers and we will continue to significantly increase our use of this in the future.”