It's called Plimob and it's one of the companies I follow because I've always liked the way it's developed. It has been steady in growing and has done so by continually investing in technology and staff training while being careful about managing expenses. It has been able to create a solid partnership with IKEA based on reliability and trust that has lasted for decades. The partnership is so close that there are joint platforms to track stock in stores and warehouses around the world. Plimob has the ability to honour orders within three days of launch, a performance that underpins the trust the Swedish company enjoys.
As you may have learned from material already publishedI was recently in Sighetu Marmației and took the opportunity to go to Plimob. The meeting with the technical director Gheorghe Bledea was not only a good moment to reminisce but also the perfect opportunity to talk officially about Plimob. The video is available in this link. Some information you won't find in that material, as well as stories about my old relationship with the factory.
A tradition of almost 140 years
The tradition of chair making is very old in Sighet. On the site of a former chair factory (now in conservation), a furniture workshop was established in 1886, which made the first curved chairs in the town. Thonet method.The workshop operated until 1890 when it was registered with the Trade Register as a "The first factory in Maramures for bent furniture and wooden goods". At that time, 25 chairs/day were manufactured.
Demand increased so that daily production doubled until 1901 when the factory was taken over by "Altman and Hubert". The new owners created the conditions for the factory to develop, increase production and diversify the product range. In 1919 it was sold again, and by 1945 it had changed ownership twice more. Thonet curved chairs made before 1945 can now be found in the Plimob collection.
In 1948 the factory was nationalized, and in 1962 it entered the process of modernization and transformation triggered at the national level for furniture factories, which led to the establishment of large CPL - Combined Wood Processing Plants. Initially it was called Complex for the industrialisation of wood (CIL)In 1965 the seating department was established, which at that time had a production of 600,000 chairs/year.
I first went to the Sighet industrial platform in 1989. The plant was huge, with sections making body furniture, folding chairs, chipboard, veneer, moulded elements. At the time I was a young researcher at ICPIL (Institute for Research and Design in the Wood Industry). We all had the task of going twice a year to the big mills that had chipboard factories to take samples for analysis. formaldehyde emission. Although it was huge, I wasn't very impressed because it wasn't the only one of its size in the country. They were built to designs made at the institute, about 3-4 designs depending on the geometry of the surface, so it all looked very familiar. They were so similar that sometimes you forgot what combination you were in. But you certainly didn't get lost inside.
The establishment of Plimob in 1990 was the beginning of a period of hard work and success.
In 1990 I went to CPL Sighetu Marmației for the last time to take PAL samples. It was just after the revolution and all sorts of transformations were taking place in the plant that would lead to its split. It was a tumultuous period and I arrived in Sighet just when there was a big scandal with the mayor of Săpânța who, together with some of the villagers, had blocked the national road with some demands that I don't remember. There was some disagreement there and the chemist of the combined company suggested we go and see for ourselves what was going on. It was in the period You lied to the people with your television And wanted to make sure we got the truth straight from the source 🙂 We went, talked to various people, but also drank some pilsner for the first time. It couldn't be done that way, it was impossible to refuse. It was the first and last time in my life that my tongue went numb that I couldn't speak, even though I was perfectly lucid and present. I still remember everything that happened then and everything we discussed. 🙂
At the end of the 1990s the combine split into four factories - chairs (Plimob), furniture and woodworking (Sigmob), veneer, plywood, moulded elements, chipboard (Sigstrat) and the one that combined the electric centre, the mechanical workshop and all utilities (ENMEC). They chose the name Plimob from the folding chairs (PLI) they produced and furniture (MOB), intending to manufacture furniture in the future. In 1995 the factory was privatised using the MEBO method whereby employees bought shares from the state. It is one of the few successful models, another being HORA, musical instrument factory in Reghin.
The next big step was the IKEA contract. The Swedish company had been working with companies in Romania since before 1989, and also with CPL Sighet. The success of the contract was due to the general manager Vasile Godja who was highly appreciated by Ingvar Kamprad, the owner of IKEA, and they became friends. Thanks to Kamprad they did not start making furniture. He told them that if they do one thing well, they should continue to do it and perfect it, not get lost on new paths. They listened to him and realised it was the right decision. Kamprad was also the one who initially supported the factory's revamp, appreciating the thriftiness with which it was run, the care with which it was spent. The modest and frugal style of IKEA's owner is notorious, and a similar model could not go unnoticed.
Success based on reliability, investment in technology and manufacturing lines and quality people
My relationship with Plimob started in 2012-2013 when we represented a major manufacturer of wood varnishes and paints. We really wanted to work with one of the biggest and most serious factories in Romania. All suppliers knew that Plimob was very hard to get into, that price negotiations were very tough, but you wanted such a client because they always paid their invoices on time. I did a lot of visits and tests then, where I met the technical director and the general manager, talked to them and liked the way they approached every problem.
After the early period when IKEA supported investments in technology, Plimob continued to grow by reinvesting profits and applying for European funds. It continued to be very cost-conscious, giving smaller machine suppliers the opportunity to enter the factory (Wood IQ, owner of the brand RUBIQ CNC), he supported young enthusiasts in the factory with the help of which he adapted and transformed machines and manufacturing lines.
It's worth noting that the millions of chairs manufactured at Plimob are demountable, as are most IKEA products. The elements have to fit together perfectly so no matter where you get them, you should be able to make a chair that sits perfectly on the floor without moving. This is what happens every day at Plimob as a quality control check (CTC). At some point, a CTC-ist comes in and assembles a chair with random elements taken from the factory. The assembled chair is put on a table and has to sit perfectly.
Chair connoisseurs know that, in the case of chairs sold assembled, if they don't sit well on the ground when you put your feet on them, you can re-cut them so you get the result you want. In the case of Plimob's removable chairs, this is not possible. The elements have to be perfect so that, no matter where in the world the chair is assembled, it sits perfectly on the floor. All this is possible thanks to computer-controlled machinery, automated production lines, and the skill, reliability and commitment of the people in the factory.
When problems arise, people don't complain but look for solutions
This is something I've noticed at Plimob over the years and I'll give just two examples now. Lack of manpower is a general problem, all manufacturers recognise it. When they could not find the staff to apply varnishes and paints to the seats, when the existing sprayers in the factory informed their bosses that they were not coming back the next day because they were going abroad, they realised they had a problem. As investments are constantly being made, the solution was to invest in robotics and automation. Now there are no more sprayer stations in Plimob, everything is done by robotic arms or automated systems.
The second example relates to energy costs. The 1 MW photovoltaic plant was completed in December 2022. At the Sarasău site near Sighet, 2400 solar panels covering 15000 m² have been installed on the roofs of three buildings. This investment will produce 1230 MWh per year, representing about 15% of the energy needed in production over a year.
What Plimob means now
Now Plimob has 5 production departments in the country - three in Sighet and two in Sarasău - a factory in Ukraine, almost 1200 employees, hectares of forest that are sustainably exploited to have a continuous source of wood, a factory of semi-finished wood products where wood from its own forest is processed. And millions of chairs sold annually all over the world.
And Plimob means something else. It's the place where all future IKEA chairs are designed, prototyped and tested, wherever they will be produced. It's a centre of excellence where a group of Romanian engineers and technicians think the products through to the smallest detail and do whatever it takes to get them into production smoothly. That's something to be a little proud of, isn't it?
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