Shortly before travelling to Salone in Milan the (smow)team headed off to Switzerland to spend a couple of days with first USM Haller and then Vitra.
The (smow)team make such trips regularly, on the one hand to keep abreast of developments in and the mood of the producers, secondly to learn a little more about the production process and thirdly quite simply to maintain and develop the personal contact with our suppliers: The better smow work with companies such as Vitra or USM Haller the better the service smow can provide. For as everyone knows, but only very few admit, the quality of the retailer/customer relationship is ultimately dependent on the quality of the supplier/retailer relationship.
First stop was Bühl and USM Haller.
It is a widely known fact that as a company USM Haller are proud of their limited product range. And rightly so: whoever has such a simple, yet practical and flexible system needs no further distractions. What is less well known is that the company building in Bühl is based on the same concept
Not only when needing to extend the premises did USM simply "add" a second unit with the same measurements onto the original building, but a quick glance at the windows should be familiar to all who know the USM Haller system.
In Bühl all USM Haller units are constructed to order by hand - an important part of the customers guarantee of receiving a quality, fault-free product. In a well rehearsed process first the outer frames are built before the panels and specialist features are added according to the customers specifications. The complete units then pass through a final quality control process before being dispatched to the customer or retailer.
A production process that is as efficient and flexible as the USM Haller system itself.
In addition to getting to know the production process a little better the (smow)delegation also met with USM Haller senior management and most importantly our contacts in the USM administration; namely, those people with whom smow speak everyday to discuss customers requirements. An example from today; a customer telephoned with a specific question to cleaning a USM Haller product. We were uncertain, so quickly telephoned our contact at USM Haller and 20 minutes later had an eMail with the information the customer needed - direct from the horses mouth as it were. We were happy, the customer was happy and USM are happy. Perfect.
And so from the (smow)team a big thank you to all involved in making the trip such an enjoyable success and we're already looking forward to our next trip.
