Strategy remains unchanged despite some market headwinds: 'We will not be distracted!'

'Once we made the choice to be innovative. It is the basis of our right to exist'

Despite the strong headwinds in many areas of society, KUFA Raamsystemen from IJmuiden does not allow itself to be thrown off balance. The goal remains clear: innovation is the basis of the company's existence. By definition, investment is always part of the deal. To use a cliché, to govern is to look ahead. Speaking is Didier Holslag. "From the asylum crisis and the constantly looming specter of inflation to a shaky economy, gloomy forecasts, nitrogen misery, and a construction industry in the Netherlands that is increasingly 'on hold': we don't let ourselves get distracted. We are continuously building a leap into the future. We have once again made major investments in new machinery."

According to Didier, those new machines, installed at the second location in IJmuiden, have now been put into operation. And that means the stock that was always there is moving. That goes to the building that was bought in recent years, also in IJmuiden. There is 860m2 of space there for that stock. Didier explains that the investment concerns production machines for (lift) sliding doors. 

Produce smarter

"What used to be done manually in production is now becoming semi-/fully automated. This further automation not only provides efficiency but also the error rate goes down. To this we then link the scaling down of inventory. This is possible because we produce smarter and also because we have made good agreements with our suppliers. In other words, through this investment we create short throughput times in production and we can guarantee our partners a delivery time of 8 weeks which is considerably shorter than the market average of 16 weeks."

Didier acknowledges that many will perceive these investments as something "against the market. He has to laugh. "And that's true. But, we have always done that. But we've never lost sight of the goal: we always want to improve in delivering to our partners in line with the market. So, if you want to innovate, you have to invest. In everything."

The latter is certainly not an understatement. "In recent years, we have already been able to make many visible investments pay off. I am thinking, for example, of the Kufa Online Calculator (KOC). In the meantime, version 4.0 has been delivered. The system is working well. In fact, we see a conversion score of 37%, which means that more than a third of the quotes made on the system actually become orders. I think this is a very high percentage."

Didier: "When I think further about what we spent our money on, I immediately come to all the new product groups in the RenoS9000® range. Furthermore, look at the patent we acquired last year on the InviKU® concealed hinge system, which is applicable to any profile but don't forget the SKG-2 burglar resistance. And, did I mention all the variations within the Komo-certified single and double HVL®? In short, despite a time out in the market - yes, call it a hefty headwind - we are always looking ahead. We once made the choice to want to be an innovative company. Well, so we don't deviate from that. We don't get distracted. We take the leap into the future every day."