FG: Graepels are a family-owned business involved in the manufacturing and design of Engineered Metal Products. With a wide variety of capabilities, we produce a vast range of products from sheet metal and steel wire. Our strengths and specialties originated, and continue to lie, in punching and weaving. However, over the years, we have expanded our capabilities to offer a large suite of metal fabrication processes.
What types of raw materials do you offer, and are they suitable for fabrication purposes?
FG: Graepels offer a wide range of materials to fabricators in perforated sheet and woven wire mesh. This includes all grades of mild steel (including Corten), the full grade range of stainless steel, aluminium, copper/brass, and even a variety of ductile rubbers and plastics.
Can you provide documentation or certifications regarding the quality and specifications of your materials?
FG: Absolutely! One aspect we’ve dedicated considerable effort to at Graepels is ensuring that we meet industry quality standards, including ISO and EN 1090 CE. We also maintain in-house standards in our day-to-day tasks. We pride ourselves on delivering quality and fostering a culture of innovation and ownership. This is evident in our routine daily communication meetings where key individuals in each department convene to discuss our pipeline of work. This ensures everyone receives current updates on ongoing projects, as well as the latest challenges and successes across the business. Ownership is important to us as it allows our people to continuously learn and grow while adding to the quality of our output. This innovation helps us improve our offering of products and services.
What levels of customisation do you offer for your products to meet specific fabrication requirements?
FG: Graepels excel in offering bespoke and customised solutions, which is one of our main unique selling points. We love working with fabricators to provide solutions and solve problems, but also to collaborate on projects and learn from one another. We are big believers in coming together and view competition as a healthy mechanism that keeps us focused on ensuring a high standard. We focus less on offering the cheapest price and more on providing the most suitable, quality value product.
By working with our competition, different strengths can be combined. For example, if we can assist a fabricator with difficult or bespoke work, helping them secure the tender, it is a “win-win” for all. We all possess different strengths, resources, and expertise. By combining forces, we can leverage each other’s capabilities to achieve mutual benefits. We have a lot of experience in difficult folding, levelling, rolling work, and excel in the process of perforation where others struggle. We can produce heavy/thick plate, hard materials, and difficult perforation specifications, including small holes, high density, and large volumes.
How do you ensure the precision and accuracy of the components or parts you supply?
FG: Graepels employ advanced manufacturing techniques, stringent quality control measures, precision tooling, and machinery. Most importantly, we have a team of really good people to ensure the accuracy and precision of the components or parts we supply. We follow specified tolerances closely. Additionally, our team of engineers ensures quality results. We work closely with our customers, assisting and advising where we can. One thing that hasn’t changed in doing business for 65 years is that the small jobs matter just as much as the bigger, more prestigious jobs.
What is your typical lead time for fulfilling orders, and do you offer expedited options if needed?
FG: Our aim is to keep our deliveries as short as possible, ideally a couple of weeks at most, but sometimes jobs necessitate longer deliveries. We also hold stock for those immediate situations where it makes sense to do so.
Are there any minimum order quantities or volume discounts available for fabricators?
FG: The small quantity of work matters to us just as much as the big projects do. We started off supplying cable trays and silo screens to the agricultural industry. We sell anything from one sheet to large batch quantities of products. Naturally, larger volumes tend to be more economical. We understand that everyone must have their margin to stay in business. We try to price match where feasible, but there are always cheaper products out there. When a customer chooses Graepel over the alternatives, they are making a conscious decision to go with the best quality and value.
What technical support or assistance do you offer to fabricators using your products?
FG: We work very closely with our customers for their benefit and for ours. We often highlight issues, limitations, and capabilities if required – especially with niche products. Graepels employ a team of engineers with 2D and 3D drawing capabilities and they are responsible for programming all of our CNC equipment. Our Sales Team leans on this technical resource and works closely with them to ensure that we are offering the best information and advice to our customers. We drive our innovation with continuous R&D, testing, patent applications, and certifying our products through various governing bodies. We are very well-versed in our products and their technical capabilities.
How do you address issues such as product defects, delays, or unexpected challenges that may arise during production?
FG: Our approach is always to resolve problems as quickly as possible. No one is exempt from making mistakes, but limiting their occurrence and providing prompt resolutions is key. We have internal procedures to learn and understand where we went wrong, helping us grow and improve our service. We also share these learnings with our wider team through daily communications to ensure that the knowledge reaches all areas of the business.
What measures do you take to ensure cost-effectiveness for fabricators without compromising product quality?
FG: We continuously strive to optimise our processes, streamline operations, and leverage economies of scale to ensure cost-effectiveness for fabricators without compromising product quality or performance. We offer recommendations to meet their requirements as best we can.
Can you provide insights or recommendations for optimising fabrication processes or improving product performance using your materials?
FG: Our goal is to enhance our product performance by leveraging our technical know-how, data analysis capabilities, software, and similar resources. We work with our raw material suppliers and partners to understand their products and how we can best use them. We have a great working and long-standing relationship with our suppliers, which allows us to engage with them deeply and acquire their knowledge. We participate in supplier-delivered CPD activities and keep an eye on alternative suppliers and their progress within their competitive market space. Keeping a curious and open mind is critical to staying relevant and useful, so we place huge emphasis on continuing to learn and move forward.
Interviewee: Fred Graepel
Graepels are proud Essential Industry Partner members of Irish Steel and have plants in Kinsale, Dublin, Belfast, and Warrington. Look them up at www.graepels.com or send them an email at [email protected].
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