Menzel Elektromotoren GmbH has manufactured and supplied electric motors for a range of industrial applications for over 90 years. Now a third-generation family-owned business of more than 150 people, the firm supplies cement sector clients with squirrel cage motors, slip ring motors and direct current motors all around the world...
Global Cement (GC): Please introduce your company to our readers.
Mathis Menzel (MM): Menzel Elektromotoren was founded by my grandfather Kurt Menzel in Berlin in 1927. At that time it was engaged in the production of motors and also transformers, due to the rapid electrification across much of Europe. For the past 30 years we have just been focusing on motors: squirrel cage motors, slip ring motors and direct current motors. We stopped making transformers after the reconstruction of Germany’s infrastructure in the 1950s.
In the early days the motors Menzel made were very small. In the 1930s and 1940s they were mostly in the range of 10 - 50kW. We supplied to a wide range of industrial uses for applications like pumps and ventilation, things any factory might need. Since then everything has grown much larger, like the pieces of equipment our motors are used to drive, for example cement mills. We now make motors with power ratings of 17,500kW or even more.
GC: Where does Menzel have its factories and offices today?
MM: The headquarters are still in Berlin and we have fabrication sites in Berlin and in the Hannover area. There are also engineering offices across Europe, which serve our customers in Europe and elsewhere. Across Germany we have 150 employees, with around 15 across Europe. The European employees will liaise with clients and then refer the order / services back to the fabrication sites in Germany.
We focus strongly on offering the customer technical solutions and expertise, rather than the ‘hard sell.’ Every customer-facing Menzel employee is a real engineer who knows what s/he is talking about. For us this is an effective approach.
GC: So the overseas staff are Menzel’s ‘eyes on the ground’ in those countries...
MM: They are the eyes, but also the voice. It’s important for us to be able to speak the customers’ language all over the world. Outside of Europe we have a number of long-standing partners that we operate alongside.
GC: How did Menzel get involved in the cement sector?
MM: Due to the location of the company in West Berlin from the end of the Second World War to 1989, we became very isolated from other competitors. That meant that Menzel had a comfortable market share in West Berlin and even did maintenance for the trains. That was an advantage of isolation.
However, the main disadvantage of that somewhat unique situation was that Menzel was isolated from larger potential markets like mining, cement, power and many others. When the Berlin Wall came down, we were no longer protected on our little island, but also no longer restricted. Cement was one of a large number of industrial sectors that the company pursued in its diversification drive into other parts of Germany in the 1990s and, subsequently, the world in the 2000s.
GC: How important is the cement sector for the company today?
MM: In turnover terms cement clients represent about 10% of what we do. However, as cement is one of the most challenging industries we work with, the projects we carry out in the sector are some of the most interesting. As well as being intellectually stimulating, this means we can learn a lot from the sector and apply the findings to other parts of our business. Cement is quite unusual in that it has not only dust, high temperatures and vibrations but also the requirement to operate 24/7, in all weathers all around the world, with high reliability and availability.
GC: What is the most common application that cement clients use Menzel’s motors for?
MM: There are two main applications. The first is large mills, mainly for raw meal and cement, which mostly use slip ring motors. The second is large fans like ID fans, which generally use squirrel cage motors. It’s hard to say which is the more common request - they are almost level-pegging.
For both applications we typically supply motors in the range of 250-6500kW. This is right in the middle of our wider range. It’s another reason that we are happy to serve the cement industry.
GC: How does the company produce its motors?
MM: The first thing to say is that, unlike some other areas of the cement sector, there are no ‘secrets’ when it comes to making large electrical motors. This means that the quality of the motor is dictated not so much by its design, but predominantly by the quality of the handcraft work of the individuals in the factory, mainly on finish and final assembly. This is the way that all the major motor manufacturers operate and it is one factor that levels the field for smaller producers such as ourselves. The time and cost of employing a skilled worker should cost the same for any company, certainly within developed markets.
Another factor that levels the playing field is that there are relatively few high quality suppliers of materials to the large motor sector. Whether it’s copper, bearings, iron core, insulation materials, the major motor manufacturers are buying very similar raw materials. How they are then assembled is where the manufacturers may differ. So, if someone offers you a big discount on a large electrical motor, they are either scrimping on materials or quality labour.
GC: How long does it take to supply a motor to a cement sector client?
MM: It depends on the approach taken. We actually have one of the largest warehouses with ready-to-go motors in the sector and they can be shipped at very short notice around the world.
If we are making a specific motor for the client’s individual needs - the most common case - it will take around four weeks to engineer, four to six months to manufacture and order parts and then another four weeks to assemble, test and paint the finished motor. That means a total order time of six to nine months, plus delivery. Every direct order is slightly different from the previous one.
Having the large warehouse is an effect of supplying the pump sector. When a pump manufacturer can make the pump in 6 - 8 weeks, there is a competitive advantage if we have the motor ready to supply to them off-the-shelf. Sometimes this is also a request from cement producers or their suppliers.
There are three advantages for us of having the large warehouse. Firstly, if we have stock we can reduce the load on the factory in busy times. Secondly, vice-versa, we can ramp up the stock if the factory is seeing lower demand. Thirdly, it opens doors to new business. If a cement producer is ‘desperate’ for a motor and we can supply it rapidly, that service may help to secure further orders from that client. It will, of course, have to pay a premium for an ‘instant fix’ but we are very clear about that in our discussions. It will cost less to wait the six to nine months, but cement producers simply can’t afford to wait around that long!
GC: How does a motor supplied to the cement sector differ from the other industries you serve?
MM: It depends on the sector you are comparing it to. If comparing cement and mining, there will be very few differences between the motors. Both have to deal with dust, high vibration and high temperatures. If you were to compare a motor for the cement sector with one for a pump however, you would see that the pump motor can be lighter, with thinner, more flexible housing, less precaution for dust, etc... The cement and mining fans have to have far better seals against dust ingress too.
I would say that the cement motors are our most ‘conservative’ designs from a material point of view. The sector is very interested in high reliability and availability and what some might even call ‘over-specifying’ is how we address that requirement.
Other motor manufacturers (and sectors) might put a higher emphasis on something else, for example standardised motors for lean production. We all know the way to increase efficiency: reduce the air gap between the rotor and stator, for example. However, if you throw big vibrations at a motor with a reduced rotor-stator gap, you risk them making contact and you could destroy the motor. It’s not a risk worth taking in the cement sector.
GC: Once a motor is delivered to the client, who is responsible for installation at the plant?
MM: The approach will depend on the client. If we are supplying to a cement sector OEM, that supplier will integrate the motor into its larger contract. If the motor is supplied to a cement plant, the company staff is often skilled enough to install the motor without assistance from Menzel.
To help those clients that don’t have the necessary skills in house or do want us to do the installation, in 2011 we bought a German company specialised in the maintenance and installation of large motors. It has grown from 25 staff to 65 over that period. We have also used this company to help install the motors of our competitors. This is another advantage to our operations. The difference, as I touched upon earlier, is in the service offering, fast and flexible help, wherever needed. This is increasingly important across the cement sector.
GC: Where are the biggest global ‘hot-spots’ at the moment for Menzel’s cement sector clients?
MM: As far as new plant contracts go, we’re talking about Africa and Latin America. In Europe we also see good orders but these are for retrofits, typically one or two mid-size motors at a time. I’m not in a position to quantitatively answer how many motors went to each country or continent. That’s because when we supply an OEM it could then send that motor in a larger order to anywhere. The same is true when we deal with the large multinational cement players. They might order from their European headquarters and then ship it themselves to the final destination.
GC: Does that mean motors can go ‘off the radar?’
MM: It’s not that we usually don’t know the destination of our motors. We do. However, we don’t agglomerate that data into national or regional statistics. Some sectors, not cement I hasten to add, do try to ‘pull the wool over our eyes’ regarding the final destination of the motors.
GC: Where is on the rise at the moment?
MM: Outside of the cement sector, there has been a flurry of mining orders and water utilities in North Africa and the Middle East in the past few months. This is quite a change compared to the past few years.
GC: What about weaker areas?
MM: The US is not great at the moment for us, in terms of mining and processing industries. We haven’t supplied cement clients in that country yet.
GC: How have client types been changing?
MM: We have a variety of clients within the cement sector but the relative proportions of those are not changing a lot with time. We try to work mostly with smaller cement players rather than larger ones, which often like to work with larger motor suppliers. Smaller producers represent our largest class of client.
Single plant owners and smaller groups tend to be more cautious with their equipment and are also more open to smaller suppliers such as ourselves. In some countries we are able to develop a reputation with one particular customer and they recommend us to another cement producer. There is quite a lot of staff flowing between cement plants in smaller markets and word gets around quite fast.
GC: How are the types of contract changing at the moment?
MM: There is quite a focus on retrofits and upgrades in several markets, mainly from Africa and Latin America. This typically means one or two mid-size motors for a cement plant looking to upgrade its electrical drive systems.
GC: Would you say that the cement sector is gaining or losing importance for Menzel?
MM: Neither is the case and that’s good for us. We are well diversified across a wide range of different industries. If one is up, another might be down and that keeps us quite stable. No one single industry dominates our fortunes.
GC: How are cement sector demands changing with respect to motors?
MM: Size continues to be a growth factor for cement producers. 20 years ago we made a lot of 2 - 3MW motors for the sector. Now we have requests more typically of 4MW, 5MW or even 6MW. Will this trend for bigger and bigger motors continue? It is not impossible and, indeed, Menzel has supplied motors up to 17.5MW. However, some of the largest motors are hard to transport. Cement plant capacities also seem to be reaching a plateau, or at least the rate of growth is not as fast as in the past. I would say it is quite unlikely that the sector will demand our largest motors just yet!
GC: Does Menzel have plans to grow its capabilities in the coming years?
MM: I don’t want to go on the record and state our targets, but suffice to say that we are always looking to improve from a technical standpoint, which is at the core of everything we do. We continue to invest in a range of smaller, incremental changes to our manufacturing, testing and installation processes to provide additional benefits to the client.
GC: Mathis Menzel, thank you very much indeed!
MM: You are most welcome!