Weir Minerals is an innovator in the mining industry with trusted engineering technology and services whose strength lies within the work that its people do both globally and locally for over 150 years with currently 11,000 people in more than 60 countries around the world.
“As Weir people, we encourage each other to do our best work to build a stronger legacy for the next generation with the mission to enable our customers’ operations to be more sustainable and efficient,” explains Carola Schulz, Managing Director of Weir Minerals NATCA. “From Chile to the USA, from Britain to Morocco, from Kazakhstan to China and Australia, we maintain a consistency in the same level of high-quality work, systems, and collaboration across borders for our globally integrated high-quality products and services. We do this all while keeping in mind a customer-centric outlook and safety-first principles.”
Weir has built its reputation on its commitment to trusting in the company’s local capabilities, empowering its people to be the main pillars of the company’s success, supported by Weir’s unrivalled global knowledge network of engneering and service expertise.
“It is not only our cross-borders high-quality service and solutions we provide to our customers; it is also our emphasis on doing the right thing in our daily work routines,” Schulz says. “As well as delivering high-quality products and services we also focus on delighting our customers and ensuring safe, sustainable, and innovative operations for them to achieve their sustainability goals.”
A New Milestone
In pursuit of its goals, Weir Minerals has recently opened a new, 3,300 square metres service “Supercentre” in Almaty, Kazakhstan. This facility marks an important strategic milestone for Weir Minerals, expanding the firm’s local capabilities in terms of engineering and service expertise while allowing it to accelerate customer support across this region. The new facility has been fully equipped with a customer service office and a workshop for the maintenance, repair and assembly of Warman® pumps, Cavex® hydrocyclones and Isogate® knife-gate valves. It also holds a warehouse that stocks strategic equipment and spare parts. The Supercentre is also fully equipped to perform rubber lining with premium Linatex® rubber in both cold and hot bonding.
“Since being close to our customers is one of our utmost priorities, we have continued expanding our local capabilities in the NATCA countries by opening our new Supercentre in Kazakhstan, which will support our key customers in the region, as well as manufacture Linatex® hoses and execute rubber-lining activities,” Schulz tells us. “This investment is core to our localisation strategy and will continue to support our ambitious growth plans in Central Asia.”
It also marks an excellent opportunity to support the local community.
“We are guided by the philosophy of supporting the local economy and always being located close to our customers,” said Gavin Dyer, the Regional Managing Director of Weir Minerals ENACA (Europe and NATCA), at the opening of the facility. “We strive to be able to contribute to our customers’ value chain and support their success; and for me, the local employees are the main pillar ensuring that we are successful. It is our people that create our legacy, and we are heavily investing in the development of our employees to support our growth and the growth of our customers.”
Of course, when establishing a strategic milestone facility such as this, there are three key priorities. Location, location, location.
“Initially, our location was in the Karaganda Region in Central Kazakhstan which is the hub for the Kazakh coal mining companies. However, the regional infrastructure was not proving to be a good location for manufacturing requirements, as well as the remoteness from Almaty, where our Key Accounts are located,” Schulz recalls. “It was about the right financial planning and having a good industrial area with sufficient infrastructure support that took us about three years in the search.”
Assessing the Options
It was a question not just of finding the right place, but carefully assessing all the options and working with stakeholders to ensure Weir Minerals placed its Supercentre in the perfect location.
“We carried out diligent feasibility analysis and searched for collaboration with companies that are interested in developing economic value and opportunities in the region. In the end, we were enabled to make a £1 million investment in the new industrial zone of Almaty,” Schulz recalls. “As greenfield investments need a lot of ground up work, we specifically secured dedicated people resources for this investment, such as project management and site management experts. We were able to ensure a high trust relationship with the Almaty industrial zone managers which has been key in our efforts to ensure we have the world-class infrastructure resources in hand.”
Indeed, collaboration has been a hallmark of the Supercentre facility’s establishment. Schulz is quick to give credit to the company’s valuable allies in building the centre.
Schulz tells us, “We would like to thank our partners from the British Embassy in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for their continuous support in assisting us in the region, networking with customers and indeed representatives of the Governments in both countries.”
At the official opening of the facility, a ceremony was overseen by Schulz, as well as Dyer, and a selection of the company’s key customers and partners in Central Asia.
Now that Weir Minerals has established the Supercentre, it will form the foundation of an exciting new strategy in the region.
“By moving to a very strategic location, we will be able to serve not only our customer base in Kazakhstan but also customers throughout the region such as Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan,” Schulz points out. “We are looking to localise certain manufacture in Kazakhstan to support our growth aspirations as we will also be expanding into Uzbekistan with a local facility.”
