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.

Fredrik Meuller, CEO

2021 has been a positive and successful year for Nord-Lock Group, not only in terms of mitigating the pandemic and maintaining superior customer service, but also enhancing our operational platform by completing the investments in three upgraded facilities across the globe.

In fact, finishing the year stronger than ever before strategically places us at the exciting beginning of a new J-Curve. Now, we are ready to reap the rewards in 2022 by gearing up for more growth and innovation, in a better structure. We will also celebrate forty years since Nord-Lock Group first invented the original wedge-locking technology – time flies when you’re having fun!

Nord-Lock Group has seen that uncertainty can be relatively good for us, as volatility in the markets drives a ‘flight to safety’ and customers return to trusted manufacturers in order to mitigate risk. As the original and number one manufacturer of wedge-locking washers, customers know that Nord-Lock Group has a performance track record and the financial muscle to weather the storm.

We also benefit from a well balanced portfolio of customers, both geographically and across the many different industries that use our solutions. This was particularly helpful to offset any potential downturns – as when one region suffered due to the pandemic, elsewhere would perform better than expected. The same goes for our industry exposure. Nord-Lock Group doesn’t stand or fall with any particular accounts, so when one area has been more subdued, it was countered by an upturn somewhere else.

Our strength is the result of a long-term approach, with a clear focus on efficiency, growth and innovation. Our owners, Investment AB Latour, invested heavily to complete three new or upgraded facilities, so much of 2021 was spent operationalising them to extract value from the more efficient setups. These facilities doubled in size. Now, our colleagues have safer, more sustainable and efficient workplaces, and crucially our customers get an even better product and service.

Strong, financially stable ownership is also key to our availability. Profits are reinvested into the company, so as well as future-proofing facilities we’re also able to carry stock across the world. We’re able to serve urgent customer needs and deliver immediately, this is a key success factor for Nord-Lock Group. Sometimes a customer needs washers yesterday, so to speak, and Nord-Lock Group is there to ‘go the extra mile’ and sort it out. We’re able to tie up capital and have the right product, in the right place, at the right time – and our ability to deliver has been extremely appreciated and has actually resulted in us gaining market share.

Looking ahead, we and all other companies need to get accustomed to an uncertain operating context. In a precarious world you need to be agile and flexible, and we’re quite satisfied that Nord-Lock Group has adapted well to remote working and digitisation. We had the digital infrastructure to handle a pandemic and will remain flexible enough to serve customer needs digitally whenever that becomes necessary.

We work in close partnership with our customers to solve complex engineering challenges. So, our global reach and local presence has become more relevant and valued in a more connected yet protectionist world. We’re able to talk design with a customer in Germany and then quickly deliver the products to its operations in Australia, for example. Of course, travel restrictions added complexity, but again we were able to transfer our thought leadership and unique competences via digital communications – hosting webinars and producing comprehensive white papers on specific industries such as bridge construction and oil and gas.

Overall, there is a rather optimistic and ambitious outlook for Nord-Lock Group, following on from what will most likely be a record year for us in 2021. Transportation is settling, with freight and container vessels now being in the right parts of the world. I think availability will remain key, as will being that safe haven in an uncertain world.

We’re determined to continue capturing organic growth. Yes, we’ll also open new offices and be opportunistic with bolt-on acquisitions, but organic growth is in our own hands and awareness is often our biggest competitor. Simply making more people aware that we are out there is key, so in 2022 we’ll pursue the huge growth potential remaining in mature markets, plus strengthen our presence in the Middle East, Africa and south-east Asia.

Our growth is facilitated by winning in the war for talent. It’s been a challenge, but our ability to attract, retain and develop the right people has been absolutely key. We have grown a lot in number of employees in recent years and taking advantage of in-house knowledge drives our efficiency and innovation.

Progress here is also facilitated by the factory expansions providing more physical space for R&D, bigger testing labs and an even better department for quality assurance. There’s plenty more room to ‘think outside of the box’ than we had before and this paves the way for more successful innovations, with an interesting pipeline of product/concept launches already in place for the coming year across our four technology brands.

Of course, there is a lot happening with smart sensors in the fastener field, but few can prove their solutions with a concrete business model. Our industries can be rather conservative, so testing and piloting applications takes time. However, large companies are now beginning to endorse our Superbolt Load-Sensing Tensioner (LST) and it is establishing a sizeable revenue stream since being launched in 2019.

We’re introducing Superbolt Load-Sensing Flexnut (LSF) to complement our smart products offering this year. LSF is more flexible than multi-jackbolt tensioners and is therefore open to a wider range of applications, ensuring uptime and reducing maintenance cost for end users in a major way.

For cost driven industries like offshore wind, optimising uptime by scheduling maintenance with solutions like the LST/LSF could help save millions of Swedish Krona, at the same time as retaining quality and safety in the wind turbines. Thankfully we now have a performance track record in this area too.

Bigger infrastructure projects are back on the rise too, with bridges, tunnels and mega construction a part of many nations’ recovery efforts. We don’t just supply high-quality security washers, many of these projects also look to our four strong technology brands for engineering design partnership, such as the recent bridge constructions in Stockholm and Gothenburg in Sweden. Next generation industrial technologies in offshore wind, nuclear, and other sectors, select us among a limited number of partners too.

We support these customers very closely with initial drawings, calculations, application and follow-up maintenance. These kinds of supportive, full project performance services are in demand, so consultancy is a growing area for us.

And of course, 2022 marks forty years in the industry for us. From developing the world’s original pair of wedge-locking washers in a barn in northern Sweden, to forty years later completing upgrades on an 8,700m2 facility on the exact same grounds and standing as a global company with twenty-five offices worldwide, our organic growth into a world leader in secure bolting solutions provides a fantastic platform to continue building this company into the future.

We look forward to celebrating this milestone with our colleagues, customers and partners across the world, and we all take great pride in the knowledge that our work continues to make the world a safer place after four successful decades.