Comar conscious of time cost challenge

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

As a leading British firm with systems designed for the British commercial fenestration market, Comar Architectural Aluminium Systems has been in business for thirty years. Comar is 100% British and privately owned meaning that Comar face the same constraints and worries as their approved fabricator network in the current prevailing economic climate. However, Comar are enjoying unprecedented success and having survived several UK recessions, here, Comar talk about how their systems and business practices are securing record levels of work for their approved fabricator network

Anyone with experience of British construction knows the time delays that can happen through the construction process. Once a material order is placed the client/contractor wants to be on-site yesterday. How do sub-contractors deal with this?

Costs associated with time are rarely quantified in a busy business, dealing with poor suppliers who have unreliable lead times becomes part of then norm and these subsequent costs are swallowed as day-to-day running costs. Companies will invest in machine tools to minimise production costs, but rarely look at the efficiency of their suppliers as this involves the short-term pain of changing over to a new unknown, supplier.

Some fabricators look at putting profiles in stock to overcome these issues, however, this can tie up valuable liquidity. Liquidity and cash flow is an especially pertinent issue with banks loan options now being reduced, therefore finding a reliable supplier to maximise profitability is the cornerstone of Comar and it’s approved fabricators operations. This means that Comar projects offer speed and cost efficiency to the client/contractor and record sales prove this.

If, out of the blue, your business has to wait 4-6 weeks for materials and accessories, you and your business will have to wait an extra 4-6 weeks before you can get paid from the contractor/client and your production schedule for secured works can literally go out of the window. This can also impact on manpower hours: overtime might need to be paid to hit a site deadline, which obviously erodes your profit margin. Bad suppliers can result in fabricators being busy fools, with little margin from the originally profitable project.

Comar invest in stock so that their fabricators don’t have to, thus freeing up valuable financial resources. For polyester powder coating and dual colour Comar have invested in another facility next door to the industry renowned Barley Chalu, ensuring coating commences as soon as the order arrives. Here stocks of mill finish ready to be powder coated speed up coating lead-times to the best in the aluminium industry. Comar carry most profiles in a standard white finish at their head offices so white materials can be delivered to fabricators on their next weekly delivery.As Comar own and control their own logistics fleet, this means that fabricators who have large orders can rely on flexibility of delivery when demanded.

Intrinsically, all Comar systems are multi-function profiles and accessories: profiles have been designed so they can be used in a variety of systems and applications. This means fabricator knowledge of the profile range is quickly assimilated and wastage is reduced because profiles can be used on the next project.

Many firms are now opting for CNC machines, which are an excellent time saving, thus cost saving, production tool. However, the set-up time for medium projects can be time consuming, and errors can be costly, therefore most Comar fabricators have the flexibility of Comar’s punch tooling. This comprehensive punch tooling suite provides quality preparations for all of our Comar’s system and due to the low set-up time in some instances are quicker than CNC’s. The quality of the precision punches that Comar’s tooling create, means that wastage due to error is minimised, optimising materials usage and profitability.

In summary Comar is British by Design. This not only means aluminium facades for curtain walling, windows, doors and ground floor treatment that provide longevity and legacy it means a British designed infrastructure to deliver to the uniquely demanding, time-critical British construction market.