Fax: 01444 414813
Email: info@airstream.co.uk
It seems that, according to Freud, what you do is open a state of the art, £1.25 million distribution centre near Leeds and start doing your level best to take a bigger share of the market by doing better than the competition. And when it comes to the tool business I am all for competition, because it generally gives us, consumers and retailers, more choices and a better deal.
It has fallen to new Managing Director, Derek Thomas, to move from the old to the new building, recruit a fresh team and oversee the expansion of sales of 4,800 of Freud’s total range of 36,000 products in the UK. Not a task that is easily done before breakfast.
As you can see from the pictures, the new Freud facility is large enough to accommodate future expansion, modern enough to be ‘green’, well insulated and convenient for online and express working methods and flexible enough to cope with future changes in practices.
From the customers&Mac226; point of view it has several other pluses too. Rows of racking and shelving hold enough stock to be able to cope with demand, including for spares and repairs. Computerised picking systems, which are de rigeur nowadays, control stock levels and allow a modern level of staffing - I saw only two storespeople working on the floor when I had my tour.
As I can also confirm, the facility is easily reachable, attractive, and doesn’t involve a trip round the now devastated areas of some other industrial estates around Leeds, and this may give buyers, dealers and other customers alike, the incentive and opportunity to try out the testing and evaluation space that Freud has insisted on having.
From this room, important decisions about product development and ideas for new products have already been generated, under the experienced eye of Technical and Training Manager, John Griffiths. This facility is central to the idea that Freud wants to work more closely with its customers and develop a more progressive and advanced way of doing business. A way that more closely reflects the needs of the customers and the parallel development of new products for them.
Again, a demanding job and one that may put the cat among the pigeons.
I have always secretly hoped that the Freud business had been started by Sigmund’s more practical siblings, determined to distance themselves from his impractical ways, but the truth is more mundane. The name Freud comes from the word Frese meaning milling cutter and Udine, the place in Italy where the company is based.
Founded in the 1960s the company had an interest in supplying the local furniture industry with cutters, so it has always been involved with making top quality industrial tooling. When it joined with Spanish company Casals in 1992, the way was opened for the introduction of a range of power tools using the Freud cutters and blades.
I can personally testify to the quality of Freud router cutters, having acquired almost by accident, a few years ago, a 9-piece set, at a charity auction run by Axminster Tools. I find that they remain consistently sharp and perform well, and are my cutters of choice. But now, as I need to start replacing some of them, I realize what a bargain I got at the auction. Quality doesn’t come cheap, and I have been given the background as to why.
Apparently, it is all due to micrograin carbide combined with Titanium. Freud manufactures its own because although micrograin carbide can be bought in from other manufacturers, everyone else can buy it too, and Freud would lose its strict control over its production. Micrograin carbide works like this:- because the grains are so tiny, when they do break off, as they will inevitably do under working conditions, the gap they leave is so small that it does not affect the cutting edge as much as if a larger grain breaking would. Combined with the toughness of Titanium, the carbide blades and cutters using this technology, remain sharper and serviceable for longer, translating into many more metres of cutting demanding materials.
Micrograin carbide is not the full story however, and anyone who closely examines a Freud circular sawblade, for example, would notice the laser cut, super accurate blade body, the patented anti-kickback design, the expansion slots that are not simply slits, but are designed to really work and the PTFE PermaShield coating. But they might not notice the tri-Metal tooth brazing and precision tensioning that add significantly to the performance and therefore the cost. As we all know though, you get what you pay for, and while there will always be a market for the cheap and cheerful, demanding users like using the best they can afford.
I am prepared to bet that many users of Freud cutters, blades and power tools would be astonished at some of the statistics, because, if my experience is anything to go by, you kind of get to know about Freud products in a round about way. They are not in-your-face advertisers round every corner, but tend to have a loyal following of customers who know and appreciate quality.
It is hard not to be expert in cutter and blade manufacturing when your most modern and efficient ISO 9001 factories throughout Europe, Canada, USA and China turn out 23,000 saw blades a day, a million carbide teeth per day and work an enviable 6 days a week.
So look out for raised profiles and new products from Freud, their investment in the UK is our gain and promises to be a win-win for retailers and their customers.
By Peter Brett
Click on icon (above) for the full story!
Airstream Communications