profile
C
aldas Engineering is a supplier
of re-engineered wear
parts for fixed and mobile
crushers for the quarrying,
mining, construction, demolition and
recycling industries. Founded in 1996
by Mozambique-born Rui Caldas, the
family-owned and run business provides a
comprehensive range of replacement parts
for leading brands of crusher and material
processing equipment.
Robyn Grimsley (RG): Tell us a
little bit about yourself and your
background.
Rui Caldas (RC): I was born and raised
in Mozambique, and did my schooling
there before I came across to South Africa
about 40 years ago. As a kid, my passion
was to be a civil engineer and become
involved in projects on the ground.
Road building, especially, was an area
that I found fascinating. After coming
to South Africa, I joined the Chamber of
Mines and worked for various employers
before moving into the foundry industry,
where I have been for over 30 years.
Despite my interest in engineering,
I’m a commercial person and I have a
commercial background. In 1996 my wife
and I started up Caldas Engineering.
RG: Caldas Engineering has been
operating for over 20 years. What
made you decide to move into this
market, and how have you been able
to trade so successfully over two
decades?
RC: We started the company from our
dining room table almost exactly 21 years
ago, on 1 July 1996. Initially, we were
focused purely on the export market, and
our idea was to procure parts from our
local industry and export them worldwide.
We were quite successful in the sense
that we found markets in Europe, North
America, the Middle East, and in Africa,
primarily in the SADC region. Over time,
the business environment changed due
to changes in economic conditions and
globalisation, and the local foundry
industry also shrank dramatically. So, we
started focusing more on the domestic
market, and we found that there was a
gap in the market because most of the big
global companies didn’t keep stock locally
and couldn’t meet market requirements.
We found ourselves in the situation where
people were bringing parts into our yard
and asking us to help us improve them, and
to keep parts in stock so they could buy
from us when they needed them.
So, in 2002 we opened our first
warehouse and started keeping stock,
and the market really opened up for
us. As people became aware of the
products and services we offered, more
clients started approaching us to carry
particular models and parts, and the
business just grew from there. Initially,
we didn’t advertise or have people out
on the road pushing our products, we
just took advantage of that need in
the market. We also made a conscious
decision to focus on the customer
rather than the product, and so we
are a relationship-driven company,
rather than product-driven one. A
major investment in stock and product
development has helped us become an
established entity in the marketplace.
And that is what we have focused
on, developing that business model
and continuing to establish and grow
our relationships with our customers.
Today, around 30% of our turnover still
comes from exporting to neighbouring
countries, east and west Africa, the
Indian Ocean Islands and the Middle
East. The world has become a lot more
competitive, a lot more global, so it's
not easy, but the fact that we have parts
on the floor allows us to supply our
customers quickly. And ultimately, our
focus on developing relationships with
our customers and helping them to get
the most out of their operations is what
has allowed us to be so successful.
While we have grown, and we now
have 25 employees, we're still very
much a family business. My eldest
daughter joined my wife and I in the
business, and my son-in-law, Michael
da Camara, is the CEO designate. Our
focus now is on growing our business
into Africa, and of course on looking
QUARRY SA | JULY 2017 _ 29