Finding the keys to success in the water and wastewater sector
As pump company Börger celebrates the 20th anniversary of establishing what has become a successful UK operation, Managing Director David Brown reflects on his journey and how the market and the technology he supplies have evolved over the last two decades.
flow: David, how did you come to be at Börger, setting up the UK subsidiary?
David Brown: I was working in sales for a large compressor and pneumatics company, but when they made what I thought was a very unwise change in senior personnel, I believed it was time to get out. I saw a really interesting job in The Daily Telegraph for a sales engineer, but it asked for some ‘basic German language skills’. I didn’t speak German but thought I’d apply anyway – and before I knew it, I was being interviewed by Alois and Anne Börger at Birmingham Airport. And as they say, the rest is history.
f: What were the early days like for Börger UK?
DB: Very busy. I hit the ground running with sales to customers in the industrial sector and, in no time at all, was having an extension built at home as I’d outgrown the dining room table and soon had two colleagues working with me.
f: Although the industrial sales were going well, getting a foothold in the water/wastewater industry must have been an important goal.
DB: Yes. We wanted the larger orders to sustain our business and knew we had a good product to sell.
f: When did you manage to break through into the industry?
DB: The most significant moment was back in 2006 when I saw Thames Water at Mogden. I put the cutaway model of my demo Börger pump on the table when I arrived, but after a long journey, I had to dash the loo before we could start the meeting. When I came back, the guys from Thames said: ‘How long have you got?’, ‘Do you want to grab your high-viz from your car?’, ‘We’ve got some pump jobs for you to look at’.
Unbeknown to me, they’d taken the Börger model apart and put it back together before I got back to the meeting room.
They loved that our rotary lobe pump was so simple and had a ‘maintenance- in-place design’, so it would be very easy to service. I put together the quotes that evening in my hotel room, and we won three of the four contracts on offer, one of the orders being for 16 pumps, so that really was our big breakthrough, putting us on an even more solid footing.
f: Over the years since you started Börger UK, how have you seen the demands from the water and wastewater industry evolve?
DB: There is more focus now than ever before on environmental impact. Not surprisingly, we’ve always put evidence forward that rotary lobe pump designs are a far more efficient pumping method. The water and wastewater industry was starting to keep a closer eye on power costs before the energy crisis, but now, even more so.
f: How has the technology you supply evolved to meet those changing demands?
DB: Motor efficiencies have changed for the better, moving from ‘Efficiency 2’ motors up to IEC 3 (International Electrical Commission), and now there is an increasing demand for IEC 4.
There is also a huge demand for less time-consuming upkeep of equipment; here I think we’ve been way ahead of the game with our long-established maintenance-in- place design.
f: And how do you see the demands of the sector, and the technology that is supplied, developing over the next five, ten or 20 years?
DB: As demand increases to handle various challenging sludges, especially in the growing use of THP (thermal hydrolysis plants) there will be less use of elastomers and more implementation of steel rotors. Due to demand, we’ve just launched our OrbitGrinder, a cutting basket macerator that shreds solids; a completely new technology for the sector. If the water industry is ever allowed to take in food/organic waste for co- digestion with municipal sludge, we could see a big surge in demand for suitable pumps and macerators. We’re ready to go now with our equipment, but because of such very different waste streams, with food waste so contaminated, I can’t see it happening for a very long time, if ever.
