Katyusha

Inspiring furniture finishing

Katiusha is a giant industrial group which manufactures furniture: originally a Soviet combine, today it is one of Russia’s leading furniture companies.

That is an extremely narrow definition, because in reality the Dmi furniture factory (the brand under which it is known to the public) is much more. Not just “Design Mobili per Interni” (Interior Furniture Design), but a true integrated system, from the log to the finished furniture, via production of chipboard panels (Russia’s biggest producer) with resins synthesised in the nearby structure. Not far away is the department where decorative paper is printed, the line for impregnation, lamination and preliminary machining. It’s a world amongst the Bryansk Oblast region forests, four hundred kilometres from Moscow. On the other side of the town is the furniture factory and headquarters, built in 2003 over a period of 18 months. The industrial group consists of 20 companies, with more than 2,700 employees and a foreign turnover of € 45 million (outside CIS), although this was 100 before the recent rouble “crisis”.

Every day at Katiusha around 1,500 pieces of furniture in 4,500 boxes are produced, because it is a “flat pack” system. 18,000 square metres of warehouse, hundreds of trucks to be loaded and departing for the more than 400 points of sale throughout Russia, from Moscow to Vladivostok.

It’s a constantly evolving giant: in a few months the kitchen production department will be inaugurated, a new 7,000 square metre factory. In two years the new factory to which panel production will be transferred will be ready: making 250,000 cubic metres per year, twice the current output.

“We decided to work with Italian designers and we immediately saw the results: families come to our stores and really like what they find.” - Sergey Avdeev, General Manager of Katiusha

Forty “collections”, thousands of different items of furniture. Two product levels: DMI VERDE or “green” (double and single bedrooms, living rooms, entrance halls) and DMI ORANGE, the younger, more colourful variety.

“We decided to work with Italian designers and we immediately saw the results: families come to our stores and really like what they find”, says Sergey Avdeev, the enthusiastic general manager of Katiusha.

“Collections where the elegance of wood is combined with the eight colours that we very carefully selected. Impressive and inspiring. We are very pleased with this project”.

“The finish is one of the values that the consumer perceives first. It’s what immediately tells him if the piece of furniture is what he was looking for”, adds Avdeev. “We really focus on customer satisfaction, on supplying not just furniture, but a lifestyle, an atmosphere, for a better and more comfortable home. More than 60 per cent of our customers become regular customers... that’s a great result, it shows that we’re on the right track”.

Undoubtedly, that’s partly thanks to Superfici!

By Luca Rossetti - Xylon

Katiusha Dyatkovo (Russia)