Insight

A review and preview of the global fastener market

Named after the Roman god who is often depicted as having two faces – due to its ability to look to the future and to the past – the Janus Perspective is a unique feature that includes a wide cross section of global fastener business leaders, who have all contributed their retrospective of 2021 and thoughts on prospects and challenges for 2022.

Daniel Suárez, managing director

2021 has been a year full of challenges for every business. The Covid-19 pandemic; the challenges in global transport; and the increase in the prices of raw materials and energy; have forced BRALO to react and be flexible to adapt to the circumstances – without compromising its customers’ commitments. BRALO’s ability to adapt to market demands has led us to achieve double-digit growth in our results compared to pre-Covid figures.

At BRALO our workforce proved the best possible commitment during the pandemic. At the same time, BRALO supported all our teams in those difficult times.

We started 2021 facing a heavy snowstorm that brought Madrid to a standstill for a week. However, thanks to our incredible workforce, we resumed production within 36 hours and were the first production company in our region to do so. That’s just a demonstration of our resilience.

After the first few months, we decided to see the Covid-19 crisis as an opportunity to review some strategic approaches and, honestly, I think we have come out stronger, as our turnover shows – more than 10% above pre-pandemic 2019 levels. We have also made investments in new machinery in China and Spain to increase installed capacity to ensure BRALO factories produce with the latest technologies.

While the company focused its efforts on safeguarding employee health and maintaining service to customers, BRALO’s extensive logistics and production network, with plants in China, Spain, and Mexico, as well as seven warehouses across Europe, enabled it to meet global demand by adapting production when shutdowns occurred anywhere in the world.

Sustainable mobility and renewable energies

Innovation, to which BRALO devotes 5% of its turnover, remains key for the company. New developments of solutions for sectors such as wind energy or electric cars, the introduction of new ranges of battery powered tools (BT-20 for rivets and an insert nut tool in the prototype phase), as well as the development of a new family of hydro-pneumatic riveting machines for high strength rivets and insert nuts (HT family), are examples of the constant importance of innovation in the company’s strategy.

In addition to manufacturing rivets and insert nuts for a wide range of applications in industry, automotive, and construction, BRALO has experienced significant growth in the renewable energy sector, where we have created fastening solutions that achieve a wide variety of options for the installation of solar module structures.  Our sales volume in solar energy has skyrocketed. The renewable energy sector will account for 5.7% of turnover in 2021, up from 3.5% in 2020. Today, we are designing and selling rivets to most of the world’s top 10 solar tracker producers, with customers in North America, Europe and China – supporting their projects worldwide.

Other sectors are also experiencing quick changes. In automotive, for example, the trend is unmistakable – the future is electric. At the recent Frankfurt Motor Show, all major manufacturers presented innovations in the electric segment. Our obligation as a supplier is to go hand in hand with them. That is why we are developing new products specifically for this type of technology.  Our automotive customers include Ford, but we also supply Bosch, VALEO and Toyota Boshoku. Our crisis management during the pandemic has helped to strengthen relationships with long-standing customers and opened the door to new business relationships.

Underlining our dedication to product quality, BRALO was honoured in 2021 with the highest recognition for quality, a Gold Award from Toyota Boshoku. We are deeply proud of the award and this recognition is the best possible image for our products. Our motto is ‘The quality in rivets’, therefore having such recognition from a well-known company as Toyota is the best possible recognition to our way of delivering products to our customers.

BRALO exports its products to more than 60 countries. The data indicates that we are doing great numbers in several countries and exceeding our plans in others. Many customers are coming to us because we are reliable in quality and deadlines.

Digitalisation and environmental commitment

BRALO is also looking to the future with two key themes in its plans – digitalisation and environmental commitment. Advancing the digitisation of our processes and using data to accelerate improvements is becoming increasingly important. BRALO has recently take part in some conferences to support digitalisation in the metal sector in Spain to share our best practices to other players.

Economics, compliance and ecology cannot be considered separately. BRALO is ISO 14001 certified, which proves that we have an environmental management system in place. In addition, BRALO has recently joined a partnership to support the battery lifecycle and ensure a safe ‘end of life’ proposition for all of the company’s batteries.

BRALO has also replaced plastic blister packs in its hand tools with 100% recyclable cardboard and is committed to also do it with plastic blister packs for parts (rivets, insert nuts and accessories) throughout the year.

From when I joined BRALO in 2019, with the goal to make BRALO grow and complete a process of professionalisation to create a stronger company, we have already implemented several changes and improvements and strengthened our team. The year 2021 has shown the expected growth, which is an excellent sign that our goals are being met. At the same time, we’re focusing

on 2022 with several confirmations from customers for new projects, as well as renewed riveting machines. Our investments are a main step towards a constant growth; therefore, we’ve already ordered an extended list of stamping machines for the coming years.