Fusteria Vidal
19/01/2018
VIDAL GERMANS progress on the skeleton of office and hairdressing furniture making
They multiply their productivity thanks to a nesting table by RIERGE.
FUSTERIA VIDAL GERMANS was born in 2001, when Miquel Vidal Aguilera retires and his sons Xavier and Bartomeu take over the business.
“The carpentry was born focused on the modelism for automation, but soon it derived to the sofa world. Yesteryear this furniture piece was manufactured otherwise -says Xavier Vidal-. It was 1971 when my father started to manufacture the first armor for upholstery”.
VIDAL GERMANS clients is the upholsterer, who ends up the sofas and armchairs. The exclusivity of certain models is respected for each of them.
Nowadays the business has diversified, and the company works with all the professional rest sector. The Barcelona firm advances in the universe of the contract: hotel chains, airports and large facilities in general; and also with remarkable success in the hairdressing and office markets.
Geograohically, VIDAL GERMANS has almost all its customers in Catalunya, and notes with pleasure how many of their products make up the skeleton of high-quality, high-value-added furniture goes to Russia and Middle East. “We never give the furniture finished -says Bartomeu Vidal-. We serve it ready yo be upholstered”.
Therefore, among the main virtues of VIDAL GERMANS are flexibility in production and speed and serviceability.
QUANTITY AND VARIETY OF PRODUCTS
FUSTERIA VIDAL GERMANS manufactures around 50 units of armor per week for “Home” segment: armchairs and sofas. In hairdressing and office the figure rises to 150 units per week. There are numbers that vary depending on the manufactured item and its complexity. “There are models of sofas of which we have reached 5.000 units in a year”.
The customer determines what material to work with. The solid wood, alone or combined with agglomerate or DM, are omnipresent in the skeleton of a piece of furniture of rest. VIDAL GERMANS works with top quality boards, and with Nordic Pine or Wild Pine certified wood, highly resistant to torsion.
All with a modern design, according to current fashion and completely away from the classic models of yesteryear.
MORE PRODUCTIVITY WITH RIERGE
From a design, which usually comes directly from the client, it is up to VIDAL GERMANS to trace with the MASTERCAM program the optimal way to manufacture the structure of a piece of furniture. “We build the marmor in layers -explains Xavier Vidal-, and we order from the technical office the machining that must be executed on each piece. The structure must be upholstered. And the final product must be beautiful, robust, functional and ergonomic, with all the precision that a numerical control guarantees, and also the know how that this company accumulates when designing the best armor for a seat”.
Clients, in fact, rely on the experience of VIDAL GERMANS. “They show us a finished piece of furniture, and they ask us to build their structure -says Bartomeu Vidal-. That piece of furniture can travel very far. We have to guarantee that it will work perfectly. It must never return to the factory, it would be a big problem”.
After the great crisis, VIDAL GERMANS works with fewer operators, although with better machinery. “We make the same frameworks, with less problems and less pressure due to delivery deadlines -Vidal brothers agree-. The new RIERGE machine requires 2 hours to make the same work as our previous machining centre did in 10 hours”.
One key involves incorporating nesting system in the production process. “Now there’s no manipulation of the pieces. Before we had to cut all the pieces before moving them to the numerical control. RIERGE’s one receives the entire panels and proceeds to cut, mill and mechanize in a single pass. We avoid intermediate processes and, in addition, the machine, due to its exclusive clamping system, is capable of working at high without the pieces, even small ones, moving. To all of which, we must add the precision and quality of the finish; the pieces are all perfect, from number on to a thousand.
A CUSTOMIZED MACHINE
The RIERGE’s machining centre acquired by VIDAL GERMANS shows a little table, and it occupes a minimal space into the workshop. However, it presents overwhelming capacities.
“To manufacture the furniture armors, we generate small and varied pieces -explains Xavier Vidal-. RIERGE has builded the machine tailored to our needs, which is marked by the width and length of the agglomerate that we mechanize on it: 2,44 x 1,22 meters. They have also expanded the “Z” margin, with which we can mechanize up to three boards simultaneously. Finally, they have increased the suction capacity of the table, which is already among the best in the market”.
The pieces don’t move and the production triples.
As a result of the dialogue with the customer and the flexibility in the machinery construction system, the RIERGE customer is fully satisfied with a machine designed to carry out, in the best possible way, a specific product.