A committed WorkNC customer for over 20 years, Salomon’s slogan is ‘no limits’

Whether it is in sports equipment, specialized clothing, sportswear or protective equipment, the Amer Sports Group has a worldwide presence. The Group owns a number of famous and prestigious brands such as: Atomic, Mavic, Wilson and Salomon, whose shared objective is to be sports industry market leaders. The company’s key figures give an indication of the importance of the group: 6835 employees worldwide across 5 continents, a turnover of Euros 1793 million in 2006, of which 44% was achieved in Europe and 36% by Salomon.

<< WorkNC plays a key part in our quest for optimal performance. It helps us attain optimal performance from our machines, our tools and our staff. >>
Pascal Covatta, Salomon Plastics Technology Center Manager.

The leader in French alpine equipment with over 60 years’ history and innovation to its credit, Salomon effectively became part of the group in 2005. The company achieves a turnover of over Euros 600 million with a headcount of 1425. 633 international athletes use Salomon's products and have actively participated in product development, 8192 patents have been registered since 1947, and 9 gold medals were won at the last Winter Olympics by competitors using their Carbon Pro product.

In short, Salomon has been a world leader since its inception.

Innovation has constantly been at the forefront in the company whose bywords have always been and remain : specify, engineer and make on the one hand, and manage and delegate on the other. Salomon continues to conceive and design its products in house in order to preserve the know-how for which it is renowned. For this to succeed, each independent Business Unit is responsible for the conception and design of a family of products (cross-country skiing, boots, skis, fastenings, etc), and each BU calls on the assistance of the Plastics Technology Center for the full range of products. Roland Favre, Salomon’s Production and Workshop Manager states “We work together very closely - on average, we produce about 200 molds per year, usually models and prototypes, of which 25% are made in Rumilly, France. These are created in Pro-Engineer CAD and our processes are such that we can validate them, modify them in collaboration with the Engineering Department, and then break them down into subassemblies. With WorkNC we have set up a single machining sequence, no matter what the ski boot, which can come in a range of ten different sizes. Mold build has dropped from 12 to 5 weeks over the past few years which just goes to show how well organized we are. "Here we are talking about the 25% produced in house, the remaining 75% are outsourced to mold and tool makers who are often equipped with WorkNC themselves.”

The company's production strategy has evolved over the last few years: product development, material research and process development have been kept in-house whereas a large part of the batch production has been outsourced to Europe and Asia.

"Our objective is to preserve our expertise and know-how as far as innovation is concerned, allowing us to sustain our competitive advantage, and then rely on an international network of subcontractors for production. We will end up by outsourcing 96% of our production, especially in Romania and in China." Pascal Covatta, Plastics Technology

Center Manager, told us. "The common denominator is that we maintain control of product development. In Europe, we supply all our subcontractors with the industrial tools required whether these are molds, assembly or injection molding machines, and we also help to train their staff. In Asia, our strategy is to work with partners/suppliers who have been selected for their skills and expertise, but here again, we maintain control over design, specifications and the qualification of all the products."

At Salomon, all processes and tools have been put in place to ensure it maintains its leadership in the winter sports’ market.

From aluminium molds to resin molds, the 20 years of WorkNC collaboration between Salomon and Sescoi has resulted in machining times being cut nearly tenfold. "Salomon was the first industrial customer to use WorkNC which replaced mechanical model copying", explains Bruno Marko, CEO and founder of Sescoi. "In 1988, it was a real gamble on the future and meant a radical change in their industrial organization. We have always worked closely with Salomon in order to adapt the software to their requirements."

It is true to say that for over 20 years Sescoi has supported Salomon throughout all its development and transformation processes. In the past, Salomon has been a WorkNC pilot site for Sescoi, but today it has become a true partner. All requests and any changes in the industrial process are subject to common development work with WorkNC adapting to the evolving requirements of the winter sports industry leader.

"The word 'service' has real meaning as far as Sescoi and WorkNC is concerned”.

Salomon's slogan is "no limits". Pascal Covatta explains : "Innovation is a never-ending process. Our products are also influenced by fashion trends so we are obliged to change our product range every 3 years and push back our limits to encourage innovation. We have to carry out trials and tests, start over again and reduce turnaround times. High Speed Machining (HSM) was introduced 7 years ago and we've been using 4-axis machining for about 2 years. Switching to HSM did not cause any particular problems, WorkNC already had the functions we needed. We immediately cut machining times by 30%, with our ultimate objective being 50%. Preparation times have also become shorter and shorter : 2 hours programming for 34 hours machining time for a ski mold. We have been working with WorkNC for 20 years and we have never had a collision caused by the CAM application, even when we run unsupervised machining at the weekends.”

Pascal Covatta concluded : "WorkNC plays a key part in our quest for optimal performance. It helps us attain optimal performance from our machines, our tools and our staff. Our partnership with Sescoi has always delivered mutual benefits, there are numerous advantages and we are yet to come across any downsides."