AC AMÉNAGEMENT
Furniture Technologies
The never ending charm of ash wood!
AC Aménagement is specialised in the production of hotel furniture. The company has carved itself an exclusive market by choosing a prestigious material such as ash wood. And now, thanks to SCM’s accord 30 fx machining centre, they can create their products with greater productivity levels and machining precision.
“Since we set up our company, we have experienced a growth of 110%. Every year we double our turnover”, explains Camille Frenay, the young carpenter who set up the furniture-making company, AC Aménagement, in Saint-Etienne-de-Saint-Geoirs, half-way between Grenoble and Lyon. From the outset the aim of this entrepreneur was to design and construct furniture for hotels in solid wood. His choice revealed itself to be correct. Frenay is in fact able to stand out against his competitors in a very tough market, where companies from other countries (Poland and Portugal, in particular), are able to keep their prices very low due to lower production costs. “We use 500 square metres of ash wood per year. This quantity accounts for about 80% of our production. The rest is made with oak and both woods come from the forests of Franche-Comté and from the Doubs department, both with sustainable forest management certifications. We differ from our competitors for the quality of our creations and for the 100% French production. This guarantees, amongst other things, a faultless support service, that foreign companies cannot provide”, continues Camille Frenay. The secret of a growing success, probably, because the company is submerged in orders and has decided to restructure itself very quickly, to respond to the growing number of requests from the market.
AC Aménagement soon found that the space it had was no longer enough and last year was forced to move to a former sawmill, to install a larger machine shop and achieve higher productivity levels. “When I think that I started alone, with a small combination machine…How far we’ve come!”, recalls Camille Frenay. To buy new machines he turned to JPM Diffusion, SCM’s long-time dealer for the French market. “They are the point of reference for the region”, confirms Camille Frenay. Last spring, through JPM Diffusion, AC Aménagement purchased an accord 30 fx machining centre, with double combined machining unit with three and five axis. “We had a small machining centre built in 2009, but it was slightly dated. We were looking for a solution that could guarantee higher productivity levels and precision. We chose the accord 30 fx and today we can’t do without this latest generation machining centre”.
During the installation in the new AC Aménagement plant, Alain Cœur, SCM’s sales manager for this area of France, was onsite to make sure that everything was carried out to the highest standards. The company operators were then trained by SCM technicians. Thanks to the customisation of this machining centre with a working surface of 6,380x1,680 mm and the two routing units, the furniture maker saves time by not having to change tools, achieving greater precision and optimisation. “This accord 30 fx can be used to perform any type of machining from power routing, with five interpolating axis, to high capacity drilling, as well as machining jambs with the BRC unit. It is without a doubt perfect for machining jambs, but also doors, stairs and other solid wood elements”, explains Alain Cœur. The potential of this machining centre with automatic worktable and independent carriage, with numeric control, is extensive. Camille Frenay believes that he still has a long way to go before being able to use all its capacity. “We are very interested in learning about the CAM-CAD software, which will allow us to program the machine from its interface”, explains Frenay.
Thanks to this SCM solution AC Aménagement has already produced furniture for the receptions and rooms of prestigious hotels such as the four-star Le Cercle in Cherbourg (in ash wood, olive wood and Valchromat), the four-star Best Western in Sélestat (in heat-treated ash wood) and the three-star Kyriad in Grenoble (in heat-treated oak and Valchromat). The company produces creations of extraordinary beauty!
Text Credits: Alice Heras for L’Agenceur
Photo Credits: Ac Aménagement
AC AMÉNAGEMENT - FRANCE
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