German upholstered furniture manufacturer, Polipol Group, has renewed its confidence in Lectra, a global leader in fabric cutting technology, by adopting its latest leather cutting room solution for upholstered furniture manufacturers.

As part of its growth strategy, Polipol Group decided to completely overhaul its leather cutting process in order to optimise its performance and quality.

Polipol analysed the whole market, and given the longstanding relationship with Lectra and the success of previous collaborations, the Group naturally turned to its expert partner to secure the management and implementation of the strategic project.

“I could not have imagined undertaking this important and challenging project with anyone other than Lectra,” explains Gerd J Hemmerling, Polipol Group managing director and owner.

To begin with, both companies recognised the need to define the project scope and expectations in order to reach Polipol’s strategic objectives. Lectra carried out a full diagnosis and analysis to identify Polipol’s requirements, expected results and KPIs, before drawing up an innovative project plan for the new Versalis leather cutting room.

Each step of the process – such as hide flaw identification, nesting and cutting – is carried out on a separate workstation in a parallel process.

This solution dramatically improves leather quality control, gives better hide use rates and improves workflow, including the elimination of bottlenecks due to operator dependency, resulting in higher productivity.

Once the project goes live, Lectra and its network of experts will continue to support Polipol to ensure the performance of the solution remains the same, or higher, throughout its lifecycle.

Lectra’s know-how in automated leather cutting and in change management projects (both local and global) makes it an ideal and trusted partner for the Polipol Group.

“Lectra has been working with the Polipol Group for over 20 years, but this is by far our most ambitious project to date. We are excited and proud that the company has renewed its confidence in Lectra and in our expertise not only in leather cutting automation projects, but also in terms of change management,” says Céline Choussy Bedouet, Lectra’s marketing director for automotive and furniture.

“On both sides we expect great results and a fruitful collaboration between experts.”