A marriage of convenience
Those of a certain age will remember Victor Kyam telling the world how he liked a shaver so much he bought the company. The window and door industry has a similar story.
The TV commercial that hit our screens in 1979 in which American entrepreneur Victor Kyam announced that he liked the Remington shaver that his wife bought him so much he bought the company, became the stuff of legend for a generation and has been much repeated since as the ultimate product endorsement.
In a somewhat more humble way, Adam Jones and Sean Mackey of tool and machinery maker to the frame industry, Jade Engineering, did something similar around six years ago when they invested in Kombimatec, one of the window and door industry’s best known machinery brands.
UK owned and based, Kombimatec traces its roots back to the early ‘Eighties and as such is also one of the sector’s well-established and most enduring brands. The firm remains in the hands of the Parsons family, with David becoming a director more than 20 years ago and taking the reins from his father Derek around six years ago, with Jones and Mackey sharing half of the equity with David.
Jade Engineering is well established as the go-to supplier for tooling for every PVC-U systems house and increasing numbers of aluminium frame makers, also offering a range of single-function machinery including welders, saws, end millers and corner cleaners. These may be found punctuating the factory floors of even the most advanced British and Irish frame factories, distinguished by their vivid green livery.
Jade is an exceptionally successful business that has the proud boast of its products responsible for producing the vast majority of PVC-U and aluminium window and door frames in the UK today. But around seven years ago, Jones and Mackey were considering their offer and concluded that they needed something for the next stage in frame manufacturing. And Kombimatec seemed to fit the bill.
“We were familiar with Kombimatec and liked the reputation, market positioning and the products,” reflected Sean, “and they filled the gap from where our single purpose machines left off. And when we made the initial contact, David Parsons immediately saw the potential synergy between us…we had been making tooling for their machines for years.
“Kombimatec offers an excellent range of machinery for PVC-U and aluminium frame making, from single mitre and bead saws, through to complex machining centres that can compete with the best from Germany and Italy. The range of AMC CNC machining centres are superb, as good as anything else out there and especially at the price point,” added Sean.
Kombimatec has a reputation for producing high-quality, high-performance machinery that also offers great value for money. The brand continues to enjoy healthy loyalty in a niche of its own, something that David Parsons believes is crucial to the company: “We have a customer base that is well established with some of the best-known window manufacturers in the market using our machines and returning to us whenever they wish to upgrade and expand.
“The partnership with Jade Engineering has been particularly useful in ensuring that our customers get the tooling they need to keep running, without having to wait for imports. Between us we have an enormous amount of experience and have now designed and installed several turnkey production lines using a combination of our products and knowledge”
Adam concurred: “We would only ever put our name to products that live up to the standards that we have set over the past 15 years or so and Kombimatec fits well with our offer. In addition to having an intimate understanding of the complexities of PVC-U and aluminium frame manufacturing we enjoy having the challenge of someone coming to us with problems that nobody else has been able to resolve. Between us we can also provide the equipment which means fabricators have a single point of contact for the design and equipment.
“Our Jade Consult division, has enjoyed rapid growth in recent years, and together we are able to provide ideal solutions to complex frame manufacturing problems for a range of PVC-U and aluminium production needs.”