The Fournier Group, which also owns Mobalpa, is to invest a further 30 million euros in its industrial facilities in Haute-Savoie. The family-run company is aiming for even greater flexibility and market share.
Every day at midday, Bernard Fournier, CEO of the eponymous group to which the Mobalpa brand belongs, crosses the factory to go to lunch at the company restaurant. Behind the windows, the mountain pastures, forests and limestone peaks of the Aravis massif gleam. It's here in Thônes, in the capital of Reblochon, that the cuisine of the future is being created.
Do you slam the door too hard? Your furniture cries "ouch", you put your smartphone on the worktop and it recharges itself, the instructions are embedded in the raw materials and readable via Bluetooth... So many examples that Bernard Fournier likes not only to imagine, but also to put into practice. In the greatest secrecy, his engineers meet with researchers from CEA Leti, the world's leading nanotechnology laboratory, in Grenoble. "We have to be sufficiently imaginative and creative to appeal to consumers by finding new applications that are not just gadgets," explains Bernard Fournier.
Alongside the giants Ikea, Conforama, Leroy Merlin and But, the Fournier Group claims a 10% share of the highly competitive French kitchen market. All its products are manufactured in Haute-Savoie, near Annecy, at four production sites (2 in Thônes, 1 in Metz-Tessy and 1 in Alex). "Gisèle Bonnot, Director of the Haute-Savoie Economic Development Agency, points out that "since 1984, the company has tripled its workforce.
The company hopes to increase its market share, and above all its export sales, which account for just 14%. "We're still very much a French company," laments Bernard Fournier. The Mobalpa brand is expanding in Shanghai and Asia. "We're working on quality and efficiency," sums up Bernard Fournier. To achieve this, he is investing. A lot: between 20 and 40 million euros a year, 30 million in 2014. "It's a very capital-intensive industry: we have to become more flexible and customize our products, that's our guiding principle", Bernard Fournier repeats. Customers can visualize their future kitchen in 3D, and even choose the color of the screws.
"Tailor-made for mass production", says André Montaud, director of the Thesame technology platform. In his eyes, the Fournier Group's managers "are champions of Lean management, and their company is one of the most successful in terms of production optimization. It's a world-class model, that's for sure, because I don't think there are any other companies, even in the automotive industry, that are as advanced in the integration between the end customer and production", he adds.
At Mobalpa, modesty is the rule. "With our culture of craftsmanship and our mountains, we push back our limits every year," assures Bernard Fournier. Of course, he wouldn't have set up his factory and head office in Thônes, but the group was born here and investments, including a showroom, are now too important to move. And leaving this place, "between Lake Annecy and the mountains", would surely be impossible for the Fourniers: brother Pierre is CFO and eldest son Antoine is in purchasing.
Source : Gabrielle SERRAZ, Les Echos, 18/03/2014
