A customer-driven culture
Manufacturing Today is the must-read trade publication for industry leaders.
In January, the MT editor Stephanie Crets wrote an interesting press release entitled “Tecnocap is a leading manufacturer of metal closures with a customer-driven culture”.
Extremely Nimble
In the last four years, Tecnocap went live with three new business lines to get deeper into the wine, spirits and cosmetics markets. For example, one of its wine customers wanted to switch from traditional cork closures to metal closures because that customer’s winery supplier believed that metal closures could make the product last longer. To get into these niche markets, Tecnocap must be able to continuously readapt its manufacturing lines.
“You have to be able to accommodate the small volume,” Ghigo explains. “This is a manufacturing-wise challenge as the lines are designed to accommodate the need to be responsive. We have a relatively short time to market unless something extremely customized comes in. We can usually accommodate new projects from five weeks to a couple months. When we survey our customer satisfaction, we are pretty fast in accommodating new requirements.”
Not only can metal closures keep products fresher, but they are also more recyclable . Many food and cosmetic companies – think of products such as pasta sauce or facial scrub – now prefer to house their products in glass jars with a metal closure.
“The glass jars and metal closures are definitely a green solution and highly recommended if you want the highest level of protection for food, along with compliance with regulations in Europe and the United States,” Ghigo says. “The glass jars and metal closures can stand heat treatment for food, which is the best we can give to our end-users. The cost is affordable and it is all recyclable. Glass jars are preferred by top brands at the highest level of the market. If you want to target private label to be perceived as the best product, you will choose glass and metal closures.”
To help its customers even more, Tecnocap implemented a new IT system through Syspro. The company is now in phase two of implementation, linking its production to accounting. “The purchasing and supply chain system is a state-of-the-art tool that can give you forecasts,” Ghigo says. “Being part of the metal industry, you can buy plate overnight, but for the most part you ought to get coils from steel mills with three month lead time. In this process a good projection and forecast are fundamental. Our system effectively supports us analyzing good databases which show where the market is going.”
Working Together
Everything at Tecnocap is driven by customers’ needs. When a customer asks for a customized product, our staff members cooperate all together in order to accommodate their requests. This strong commitment has led to more than 10 years of growth and sales. As Ghigo stated, 2016 was the best year ever. “Hopefully, it will continue this way,” he said. “The way to implement success is a continuous exchange of information between us and our clients”. He then continued “ People must be aware of how their business is doing and we set up a newspaper to always be up to date”.