The purchase of a new machine is a crucial moment for any company. To find out more about the motivations and benefits of such an investment, we interviewed David Millet, owner and general manager of Sofamec, a historic craft company located in Douvres-la-Délivrande.
A brief presentation of Sofamec…
Sofamec is an artisan company that has its roots in 1966 and still perpetuates the production of traditional wood joinery today.
We are a team of 19 people, specialising in the design and production of custom-made historical and artistic windows and doors, complying with modern safety and thermal-acoustic insulation regulations. We have several historical buildings and French monuments as references.
Who is your ideal customer? In which market area do you operate?
We work mainly with public administration and companies. We work a bit all over France, but most of our customers are in the Paris region. Paris is a good market.
From 26 July to 11 August there will be the Olympics in Paris: an event that has influenced the market quite a bit. In the last two years we have had a huge workload: in two years we have increased our turnover by one million euros.
Do you only produce exterior windows and doors or also interior doors?
Inside doors are not our core business. We only make them on request, when for example we are working on a historical building and there are doors with the aesthetics of the original frame to be reproduced. They are therefore more artistic doors. In any case, they are not standard doors.
How did you get to know Saomad?
The Woodpecker Optima 3 that we bought is our first Saomad machine, but we knew the company by reputation, as it is one of the main players in the sector: we had met it several times at the fair.
What convinced you most about this machine?
Beyond the technical performance, which is in line with other companies of the same level on the market, we were convinced by the human relationship we managed to establish, firstly with the French dealer.
We found that Saomad is a company closer to our reality, a more ‘family’ company, closer to our needs. Even during the test run, we saw that when faced with certain problems, the company immediately took steps to resolve them by working with the softwarmer and the woodworking tools supplier.
The Woodpecker Optima 3 is a machine that allows high productivity. Did you choose it to increase your production?
We chose it mainly to have high production flexibility and to gain some productivity. It represents an opportunity to aesthetically renew the window models we produce.
The purchase of the Saomad machine is part of a larger investment that aims to renew the entire production part. The shed remains the same, but inside we will revolutionise the machinery and the production organisation.
