Primo: Tooling as a vital in-house competence

At the onset of a new product development project, our customers have the option of teaming up with tooling specialists from Primo’s inhouse tooling centre in the very early phases.

Staffed by experienced engineers, designers and technicians, Primo’s tooling centre is actually an international collaboration between various Primo locations and factories across Europe and in China.

Allan Larsen is Primo’s Group Director of Technology and Supply Chain. He explains: “Not all profile producers run their own tooling centre, but we see it as a tremendous advantage for us and for our customers, as well. It makes time-to-market much faster, it improves our customers’ products and it ensures that we get it right the first time.”​

Shorter time-to-market

With factories in several countries, the combined skill set of the Primo Group is substantial and forms the basis of a constant exchange of ideas and knowledge between different countries and business areas.

Allan Larsen explains: “Standardisation of tools and design principles is a way to make time-to-market as short as possible. Whenever we begin a new project, we have a set of guidelines and procedures already in place to make the process go faster – and, just as importantly, to make sure we get it right the first time. This standardisation means that we can spend more of our time on innovation with our customers – a far more valuable way to spend our resources.”

Allan Larsen, Primo

”It’s all about getting it right the first time – for us and for our customers.”

Helping customers perfect their ideas

Another benefit of having a cross-border team of tooling specialists at your command is that customers will always get competent feedback on their original ideas and designs.

Construction manager Helge Nørgaard from Primo in Denmark explains: “Sometimes customers come to us with a finished set of drawings for a new profile – including a choice of material. Sometimes it’s more loosely formulated, perhaps in the form of a few sketches and not much more. Quite often we are able to sit down with the customer and start improving on the idea from the start.

With our knowledge of tools and materials, we can often see how a profile or a production process may be improved. We may also be able to add value by improving the functionality of the profile and its features. Or we may come up with suggestions for better materials or faster production processes. That’s the benefit of having decades of accumulated, international experience from several business areas.”

Helge Nørgaard

from Primo in Denmark

”We’ve done most of it before, and we hardly ever need to start from scratch.”

Special business areas, special tools

Many business areas require highly specialised profiles – this is the case in the offshore industry, in the whitegoods industry and many more. R&D manager for Primo in Poland, Kamil Herich, says: “In business areas such as these, we offer specialised tooling concepts that make a fast start-up possible.”

Kamil Herich

R&D Manager for Primo in Poland

”Our specialised tools and procedures ensure fast start-up even in highly demanding businesses.”

"Strong profile design and fast, reliable tooling are essential to the success of our customers – it gives us the ability to hit the bull’s eye the first time, so to speak. With a product portfolio as broad as ours, we have gained valuable insight into everything from the medical industry to trucks, windows, doors, offshore cables and much, much more. This means that every new project will potentially be able to gather insights from several, seemingly unconnected areas.”​