AIR BLOW FANS: ABF Enjoys Unrivalled Engineering & Technology Capability
Engineering and ventilation specialist, Air Blow Fans, is on a continued growth path alongside a mining industry that is increasingly going underground. Keeping air flowing is the key mission of this pioneering design, supply, and installation business. MD Gavin Ratner tells Enterprise Africa more about the company’s recent success.
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Representing a large percentage of their annual spending, health and safety remains the number one concern for modern mining houses. Keeping employees safe while they work comes with additional challenges in the mining industry where hazards are larger and more regular, but not always obvious.
Proper ventilation for underground miners is one of these challenges. Many of the world’s deepest mines are located in South Africa, and when more than 4,000m down a shaft, rock wall temperatures can reach 60°C or more. Some miners across the Witwatersrand talk of an 8°C increase for each kilometre down you go. It’s hot; it’s hard.
All this is to say that air quality in mines is a major industry. It supports a supply chain that creates significant employment opportunities in South Africa while feeding into the overarching goal of safety underground. But moving cool air down to the depths, and doing it efficiently, is a problem that requires science, technology, engineering, manufacturing, construction, and – critically – innovation. The equipment is large and intimidating.
Each mine is different, each company has its own strategy, and every region has its unique characteristics. For South Africa’s Air Blow Fans (ABF) – celebrating 25 years in business – the task of designing, manufacturing, and engineering fan systems for mine ventilation in mining is exciting.
“We have always had a passion within,” MD Gavin Ratner tells Enterprise Africa. He explains that the founder of the business – Mike Eadie – started ABF as a passion project, excited by invention and engineering, and not concerned with traditional business growth.
When Ratner and partners took over ABF in 2017, the entrepreneur was keen to build on the enthusiasm and expertise of the company established by its founders. Within just a few years, the business has expanded to more than 20 times its size, now with 120 people employed, and an order book with some of the world’s biggest mining and industrial brands continuing to grow.
Ratner has a history in building engineering businesses, specifically around the mining ventilation sector. Starting as a mechanical engineer in the CSIR defence aeronautics division, he worked on several defence and aerospace projects, ranging from subsonic projects to UAV developments, from helicopter technology research to trisonic missile testing in wind tunnels. Ratner ultimately managed a trisonic wind tunnel, the helicopter business area and an industrial aerodynamics portfolio before establishing MechCal, which was subsequently sold to a global fan business, TLT-Turbo. He then commuted to Canada, where he helped establish Advanced Fan Systems (a partnership with Advanced Combustion Inc). From nothing, the business grew a combined order book of $80-million in just four years. At the same time, Ratner was busy negotiating the acquisition of ABF, keen on the company’s well-established, advanced centrifugal fan design.
“It’s a very different entity now,” he says of the business that operates from a sprawling Springs facility. “Amongst other achievements, we have designed a brand-new fan range in the axial fan market for the mining sector. This was made possible by drawing on my networks to establish a team of engineers second to none. This includes a professor specialising in turbomachinery and my mentor and first boss, who is a seasoned aerodynamicist and who has designed many ranges of fans. Both men happened to work with me at the CSIR. We are also very fortunate to have a wealth of expertise in mechanical engineering and metallurgy, led by our principal engineer who steers the product development team to ultimate success on every project tackled. In short, we can design and build any type of ventilation or process fan, with the expertise to engineer every element. Pulling together the right people in a project team is a real strength of ours.”
TURNKEY SUPPLIER
ABF is currently busy with projects across South Africa and Africa. The local nature of the business, combined with fantastic software capability and a range of products, is what separates them from others in the competitive industry, Ratner explains.
“We are a turnkey supplier and our ventilation systems are designed, built, and supplied from Africa. We have some of the best system software, developed internally. We also use commercial systems in the design process. We are a very strong engineering company and that is our core differentiator. Everything we do is designed, developed, and manufactured out of the Air Blow offices.
“Many of our competitors focus generally on either axial flow or centrifugal fans, but we can do both,” he adds. “We have supplied industrial systems across most SADC countries, as far as Rwanda and we have also supplied systems into Canada.”
Control over quality is of utmost importance for Ratner and he is keen to retain as much responsibility and control as possible.
“We buy a lot of electronics and electrical motors from both local and international companies, but we do like to do as much internally as possible, he explains. “We have all the necessary equipment and we only like to outsource when we don’t have capacity.”
ABF’s ISO 9001:2015 certification and Level 4 B-BBEE accreditation assure customers of its adherence to both local and international standards. This, according to Ratner, is helpful as the company looks to grow its presence, starting an operation in Australia.
“We already have an engineer working in Australia full-time,” he says. “We have good local knowledge and one of our shareholders is Australian so it makes sense to expand into this market.” Although Ratner did initially look at expanding into the Canadian market, with his knowledge of that country’s ventilation industry, he believed that Australia offered better opportunities presently. “It’s a very similar market to ours with deep-level mining, which requires higher pressures, and that is a niche for us,” he says.
As expansion into Australia goes deeper, ABF will look to roll out more solutions and more expertise that is already proven in South Africa. This includes both centrifugal and axial systems as well as auxiliary fans, jet fans, engineering expertise, and a whole host of associated services. Particularly exciting for Ratner is the company’s remote monitoring system.
“It uses AI to detect potential equipment failures and we have spent a lot of time on R&D to generate the correct data for the AI to learn. Getting that system to be completely autonomous will continue to be a focus for us in 2024. We are collaborating with the University of Pretoria on various projects to research the use of AI and advanced sensing to assist in predicting and pre-empting catastrophic failures on large systems that we supply. Our core product remains the mechanical parts that we supply to industrial plants or the mining sector. This will augment that,” he says.
INNOVATIVE BY NATURE
Utilising advanced technology is not new for Ratner and ABF. By consistently focussing on the industry’s best practices, as well as developing tech solutions internally, the company is demonstrating what is required further across the industry. According to PwC’s 4IR in Mining Report 2023, digital transformation is not only about measurement in mining but also about contribution. Ratner agrees, stating that ABF is using modern fan systems within its systems to reduce energy usage – a key topic in South Africa now as the country’s seemingly endless battle with loadshedding blows on.
“One of the primary things ventilation systems do is use a lot of power,” he admits. “Anything we can do to optimise efficiency and operational costs is very positive. Variable Frequency Drives (VFD), for instance, provide ventilation on demand. They reduce energy consumption significantly by directing the ventilation only when it is needed; not having it as a driven system with a single speed that delivers the same flow all day, every day. We now suggest that clients use these intelligent systems, wherever possible.”
The deployment of technology across the projects where ABF has operated is impressive. This is why top names including Implats, Sibanye-Stillwater, Harmony, Idwala, Shanta Gold, Bindura Nickel and many more trust ABF to deliver.
Going forward, the business is well-positioned for further growth. Mining projects continue to get off the ground around Sub-Saharan Africa, and ABF is looking forward to its expansion into Australia. After trebling in size in just the past three years, and doubling every other year previously, Ratner is ambitious and hasn’t stopped searching for new opportunities.
“We have three or four large turnkey projects underway right now and we are working on a new design with a big mining house to change the way they ventilate underground.
“I don’t see it slowing down,” he adds. “We have a healthy order book and we continue to get enquiries. We are certainly in a growth phase, and that comes with challenges, but we can’t complain.
“Mike Eadie had a nice saying that ‘the growth pains in a business are a better class of problem to have’,” he smiles.
AWARD-WINNING
ABF’s dedication to innovation earned them the Da Vinci Award for Best Innovation Concept (Medium Enterprise) at the 2021 tt100 Business Innovation Awards, for their in-house designed and developed Axial Flow Fans. In 2024, competing as a large enterprise, ABF was a finalist in the categories of Technology Management, Innovation Management, Systems Management, and the Minister’s Award for Overall Excellence.
Bolstering the company’s confidence further, in 2023 they also claimed an award from a large coal mining customer in Mpumalanga for ‘Best Project Team of the Year.’ This recognition was earned for the supply, installation, and commissioning of two 4.8-metre diameter, 1100 kW centrifugal fans and accompanying equipment. “It was one of the largest fans installed; the magnitude of the system is awesome. To win that award was a very nice accolade for the team involved,” Ratner beamed.
As mining companies look to solve challenges underground: keeping air moving, ensuring health and safety standards, and driving operational performance, ABF stands as a proven partner, able to deliver on projects of any size, in any location. The pioneering, innovative spirit of the business and the passion for engineering have been at its core from the beginning, and ABF will continue to provide bespoke, tailored ventilation solutions from this deep-seated ethos.