Lets talk: Grinding
customers and revenue. Due to such a rapid rise in business activity we‘re currently looking to grow our headcount further.” In the beginning Peter Harding’s career story is one of both enterprise and circumstance. He began his engineering journey as an apprentice at Dowty Rotol (now Safran Landing Systems) in Staverton, Gloucestershire. However, the 1980s was a turbulent time with many companies making redundancies. Although he completed his apprenticeship at Dowty, he learnt there would be no subsequent job offer. As luck would have it, Lucas EUI Systems was constructing a new manufacturing plant at nearby Stonehouse, a project that involved the establishment of a new grinding section featuring many Studer machines. “I got a job in the new grinding section at Lucas,” he says. “I was lucky enough to get repeat trips to Studer’s headquarters in Switzerland to learn the machines inside out.” Studer comes calling Then, fate would intervene once more. Sufficiently impressed with Peter Harding, Studer offered him a job as a UK service engineer for Studer grinding machines. He accepted. Six years later, thinking it was maybe time for another change, Studer changed his mind about leaving by offering him the Studer sales agency for Southwest England and South Wales. “I had no experience in sales or running my own business, but I said yes anyway,” he explains. “I’d just spent six years as a service engineer for Studer, so I already knew the customers, and they knew me. I’ve always had a personal approach, which helps build working relationships.” Peter Harding launched ADGRIND in 2002. Knowing that he would not be selling a
new Studer machine every week, he started expanding the company’s offer by meeting customer requests for associated equipment like dressing tools, centres and more. In fact, he soon began working with a UK company that manufactures dressing tools to ADGRIND designs, an arrangement that remains in place to this day. The company also commenced the stocking of coolant filter media. Another initiative was selling grinding wheels, with ADGRIND soon establishing a close working relationship with Saint-Gobain Abrasives. Today, the company holds stock of Saint-Gobain brands such as Norton and Flexovit and, such is the relationship between the companies that Saint-Gobain even adds the ADGRIND brand to certain wheels. “It’s yet another string to our bow,” says Peter Harding. “Many Saint-Gobain wheels are high-end; for grinding materials such as Inconel or tungsten carbide. It gives our customers more options. Many times we not only specify the grinding machine but also the tooling, whether it be bonded abrasives, our own dressing tools, a coolant system, filter media, centres, bespoke tooling, whatever. Ensuring the optimal solution for our customers is a paramount factor behind the success of this business. Looking ahead, the addition of exclusive agencies for Meister, Schmeier, Karl Brukner and Technica, makes me very excited for the future of ADGRIND.” n
www.adgrind.co.uk
Machinery & Manufacturing 20
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