Established for more than 80 years in Montbrison, in the Loire region, the Blanchet group consists of trades involved in closed coverings for buildings: metal framework, metalwork, and aluminium, steel and fire-safety joinery.

It works with a wide variety of customers and requirements throughout France. From new to renovated, tertiary or industrial buildings, sporting and cultural facilities, historical monuments, and much more, a unique diversity of projects for which Blanchet’s expertise is renowned.

Investing in aluminium joinery

Investing is an effective strategy for Blanchet, which today has 140 employees and has achieved a turn-over of 27 million euros. This year, the company has continued its development by reorganising and investing in an aluminium joinery workshop. “The idea was to invest in a combination which can execute cutting and machining operations in a linear manner. This is an evolution of size”, explained Yves Vernay, Managing Director of the Blanchet group since 2018. With this cutting-machining plant, the company has ensured a higher output.

The investment in a machine that can mass-produce frames in a very competitive manner was also intended to increase its aluminium joinery activity. This represents a good part of the turnover and should see its share increase in the coming years, particularly in the sector of building renovation.

A new automatic aluminium cutting-machining plant

The industrialisation of the process of manufacturing aluminium joinery involved the acquisition of a new machine. After drafting a set of specifications, a project team benchmarked the various models available on the market. The choice fell on the cutting-machining plant made by the Belgian manufacturer Soenen, which best met the requirements.

Jean-Marc Ramadier, the marketing manager for the manufacturer in France, explained: “The versatility of our machine was a major argument for Blanchet, who wished to increase its production capacity while focusing on specific machining operations”. He pointed out a few advantages of the machine: “The autonomy of the bench is an important point; one can load at least twenty profiles in it and it can work without operator intervention for several hours. The machine can also carry out two machining operations simultaneously, without all the motors running continuously; this means its power consumption is lower than the competition.”

Since its commissioning, the cutting-machining bench has allowed improving productivity and quality by eliminating the sources of errors related to reworking. And from the point of view of the operators, it has provided improved safety and quality of life at work by limiting the need for manual intervention. Seconded from the carpentry design office, Arnaud Bourdain was involved in the installation of the new Soenen cutting-machining bench. Acting as a link between the design office and the production team, he executed the programming of the machining plant. “We worked upstream with the Soenen teams regarding the configuration and multi-range software library. This helped us optimise the deployment in production.” There are around thirty machines of this model operational in France, used to machine aluminium and PVC profiles. Thanks to the configuration work carried out beforehand, it was possible to get familiarised with the machine very quickly.