Robertson Ventilation Industries (RVI) has over 80 years experience providing the most cost effective and technically superior ventilation
solutions and requirements
By Jessica Summers
RVI was originally established in South Africa in 1958 as a part of the Robertson’s Group. The American company group was later dissolved in 1993 and taken over by a South African construction company called LTA Limited. But it wasn’t until 2005 that Eric Whelan and a colleague did a management buy-out and bought Robertson’s.
Today, RVI is capable of offering a complete range of in house designed inlet and outlet ventilation systems. As well as an extensive range of Exhaust Ventilators, Smoke & Fire Ventilators, Architectural Louvre Systems, Industrial Fixed & Operating Louvre Systems, Mechanical Ventilation Equipment and Systems and Solar Shading Louvres. In conjunction to its standard ventilation products, RVI has the in house ability to design, engineer, fabricate, install and commission application specific custom ventilation systems for any building application or process.
RVI is broken up into different sectors and therefore deals with different types of customers. “We do ventilation systems and there, we deal with major EPCM companies like SN C Lavalin, Bechtel and Hatch,” says Whelan. “The other division is the smoke and fire ventilator systems and there we deal with predominantly building contractors like Grinaker-LTA , WHBO , Murray & Roberts and that side of the business is mainly in South Africa, whereas our industrial side is in Africa, the Middle East, Australia and South America.”
RVI has installed Gravity Ventilation Systems for thousands of industrial structures.
Major projects which RVI is proud to have been contracted to design, manufacture and install ventilation systems on include Alusaf Hillside Aluminium Smelter-South Africa, Tomago Aluminium Smelter-Australia, Mozal Aluminium Smelter-Mozambique, Dubal Aluminium Smelter-Dubai and ALBA Aluminium Smelter-Bahrain and currently working on the Qatalum Aluminium Smelter, Qatar.
The company actually has an agreement with a company in the UK called Colt International which allows RVI to make use of Colts product development EU approved quality products in South Africa. In return RVI does not service the European market to which Colt International serves, but does so across the rest of the world. “We have found this agreement very beneficial” says Whelan.
The company not only has its own bespoke products but also moderate industry products for South African use and install them. “They’re all special products for different applications, everything that we do we develop for the particular buildings,” says Whelan. RVI ensures the excellence of its service by conversing with fire consultants, engineers, and establishing schemes alongside them. “We offer that system, the design followed by the engineering, manufacturing, and then the installation work,” explains Whelan. “We do the whole spectrum of it of that building.”
Present situation
With regards to the current economic situation, Whelan acknowledges that there has been a substantial slow down in business in South Africa and that RVI has been affected. “We look at all different opportunities and take them whenever we can,” he says.
The focus in RVI has shifted slightly to the Solar Shading systems that are taking off at the moment, according to Whelan, because of a ‘growing interest in finding alternative power options in South Africa’. And that new interest has supplemented the work that has been lost on smoke and fire systems.
An important decision RVI has instituted, is training schemes to ensure the highest level of skill is throughout the workforce. “Our business is very manual, not automated at all, so predominantly the work is done through labour,” explains Whelan. What has benefitted RVI greatly is the South African government has now introduced an apprentice scheme that allows for in-house training to be reimbursed financially.
Recent developments that have had significant impact on RVI have been the expansion of their manufacturing facility, nearly tripling in size from 700-square metres to 2500-square metres, as well as purchasing new equipment to bring the business forward into 2009 and beyond. The business has grown exponentially since 2005, with an employee of level of six rising to 80, with a staff compliment in the Middle East.
Whelan puts this exponential development down to a long-standing good reputation, relationships built up over the years and, simply, expertise. “Robertson’s has a great track record; it’s is a wellknown worldwide trade name,” explains Whelan. “We’ve grown it from a very small company to a large and prosperous company right now.”
Why RVI? “We offer a complete service,” assures Whelan. “We start off by the meeting of potential clients, coming up with schemes with them, and then developing that whole scheme, designing that for them, doing all the engineering, negotiating the tender- the entire project with them.” This specialised - but full service - is what sets RVI apart from other South African companies who can’t compete on the scale of service RVI provide.
“We’ve kept our core business and made it as good as it can be, and will continue to do so,” Whelan concludes.