Q: What does the Polish market for rolling bearings look like? What position does FŁT Polska occupy on this market?
A: The main supplier of rolling bearings to FŁP Polska is Fabryka Łożysk Tocznych in the eastern town of Kraśnik. The factory is Poland’s largest and oldest bearing producer and has not been privatised yet. The remaining three plants which manufacture bearings have been acquired by large strategic investors who entered the Polish market in the 1990s. SKF bought the bearing factory in Poznań, NSK in Kielce and Timken in Sosnowiec. Each factory had specialised in the manufacture of specific bearing types differing in design and size.
Initially, the new owners worked with us and, under commercial agreements, produced bearings marked with the FŁT trademark to meet the needs of our customers. But it was a temporary period, after which we were virtually left without sources of supply for Polish-made bearings manufactured by individual factories in a complementary way. At present, we have to buy the bearing types and sizes which our customers need and which are not produced by the Kraśnik-based factory from other manufacturers.
Q: Did this lead you to taking an interest in the Chinese market?
A: We started to look out for a market from which to buy bearings to meet the needs of our customers of long standing. And this led us to China. We started to penetrate this market in 2000 but it was not until November 2007 that we set up a sales company in China to add to our companies which had operated in Europe for many years.
We set up the company in China because we wanted to become known on this market and sell bearings also to Chinese customers, especially to our partners who had relocated their plants from Europe to China. We want to become more involved in the Chinese market and are thinking about establishing closer ties and buying stakes in several Chinese bearing companies.
The number of businesses operating in the Chinese bearing sector is markedly higher than in Europe. Judging by information from suppliers of machines for the bearing industry, there are around 1,000 bearing plants operating in China. The sector is expanding, with individual manufacturers offering very narrow product ranges. As a result, we had to visit around 70 Chinese companies in order to collect the range of bearing types with the designs and sizes that were of interest to us. We now work with seven or eight factories selected to meet our needs.
Q: An experienced personnel able to guarantee high product quality is a very important factor in the bearing industry. Do the Chinese plants meet your quality requirements?
A: The Chinese are making very fast progress. Quality was our priority and we selected the manufacturers according to this criterion. Tradition in bearing manufacture is of great importance and Poland has many excellent specialists in this area. Within several years we achieved such a high quality level in China that Chinese factories are now approved by our very demanding customers. The focus on quality was also behind the decision to set up our own company in China so that experienced Polish engineers could work with Chinese partners and see to ensure high quality repeatability for bearings with the FŁT trademark.
Q: FŁT Polska operates on the European market through a network of its own foreign companies. Does this organisational structure meet today’s needs?
A: FŁT Polska has been spun off from Impexmetal SA and since 1999 has worked in the bearing industry as an independent business. We have built a Bearing Group, which includes foreign companies operating in the bearing and bearing parts sector in Europe and other parts of the world.
The foreign companies play a crucial and indispensable role for us. First of all, this is so because our strategy is to deliver bearings to manufacturers making end products, something which requires direct and regular cooperation with the partners and the need to keep bearing stocks. Additionally, we are increasingly involved in developing new products at the design stage. In many cases, this means the need to adjust the bearings to new design solutions and specific customer requirements. All these factors explain why we have a strong network of foreign companies dealing with sales and technical issues.
This strategy is not new. Foreign companies were first set up in the mid-1970s to sell a wide range of products including bearings. The change in the 1990s was that the bearing business was spun off and that we focused on selling this particular group of products. There are now four companies operating in Western Europe – France, Germany, Britain and Italy – within our Bearing Group.