'There is often urgency, so it is ideal for the customer that we can deliver at lightning speed'

Some time ago we became acquainted with Ton van Leeuwen Snijwerken from Harmelen. For almost 30 years this metalworking company has been called in for the most challenging projects. From work on our national roads and dikes, to the supply of parts for mechanical engineering or earth moving technology. Managing Director Sam van Engelen has a great passion for metal: "My grandfather was a welder and I myself started working as a welder and metalworker at the age of fifteen. Now, as the person responsible for purchasing and planning, I have an incredibly fun and varied job. In the morning I take a look, so to speak, at a construction site where our stuff is being used to reinforce a dike and in the afternoon I drive to a customer who makes beautiful machines for the recycling industry." 

Thanks to their central location in the Netherlands and the fact that the cutting and construction work is done under one roof, they can deliver quickly. "There is often urgency with the customer, so it is ideal for them that we can work quickly, partly because we have four welders in our workshop. And through years of experience we are able to come up with adequate solutions for acute problems. Everything so that a project is down for as short a time as possible."

Widening A9

"We are currently engaged for the widening of the A9, for which we are actually doing all the usual cutting work. Think of the head and knee plates and anchor plates for sheet piling reinforcements. Or the temporary covers for pipe seals. We also supply a lot of wear-resistant material to machine builders, who then use it again in earth-moving machines or crane buckets, for example. And we do a lot for the high-end foundation industry. From the covers in piles to the components of piling machines. We also serve construction companies with steel structures of all sizes."

Solutions

When asked why so many customers come to them, Sam replies, "Our desire is to take care of everyone, as cliché as that sounds. If the customer wants us to come and deliver it, we will." They recently purchased a new car with a large trailer for this purpose. "And who knows, maybe in the future there will be a three-axle trailer with Ton van Leeuwen on it. Our customers are sometimes literally and figuratively in the dredge. They sit on the construction site with a problem, call us and want to be helped as quickly as possible. Usually we provide a conventional solution, but sometimes we also come up with an unconventional one. Everything so that the team of excavators can get on with their work as quickly as possible. Nothing is too crazy and therefore everything is actually normal," Sam sums it up beautifully.

The metalworking company has continuous customer contact and deliberately does so by phone as much as possible rather than e-mail. "Suppose a customer asks something that is not possible or for which we can offer a better solution? On the phone we can present that to him right away and no time is lost for him."