Fibox, a Finnish enclosure manufacturer, this month celebrates its twentieth anniversary as a stand alone manufacturing and sales company

Fibox has been making injection moulded enclosures since 1966, but until 1991 the company making the enclosures was Fiskars, which was better known for making knives and scissors, and latterly became the owners of Wilkinson Sword.

Though Fibox has maintained success throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the road was long and began in 1991 when the current owner, Tapani Niemi, led a management buy out. At that time the only sales office was in Ekenas, Finland with a scattering of distributors around the world. So his first task was to set about making the company a global organisation by opening subsidiary sales companies in other countries.

Under Tapani’s guidance, the company went from strength to strength; so much so in 1995 the company moved to a purpose built factory and office complex in Jorvas near Helsinki. There they remained until 2008 when and in line with the company’s strategy to be closer to its existing and future customer base, a new 6,000 square metre distribution and customer service hub was opened in Porta Westfalica, northern Germany, to better support the established and expanding number of Fibox customers in the new member nations of the European Union.

With substantial stock holding this new operation has proved to be well placed to provide Fibox with the base to meet the company’s ambitious growth targets.
Since Fibox was formed in 1991, 14 sales companies have been established across the globe with manufacturing being carried out in highly automated factories in Finland, China and Korea, with a state of the art customising facility, now operational in Poland.

The company has also moved its head office function to Espoo, just up the road from Jorvas and in conjunction with the above changes has completed its strategic goal to become one of the largest, most customer focused enclosure manufacturing companies in the world.

Early in the company’s development, Fibox realised many of its customers considered service support, to be one of the most crucial concerns when deciding from whom and where to buy; whether that be a single enclosure, a complete system, a totally customised product or a total solution offering – intended to create a complete package that solved a specific problem.

As well as traditional enclosure specifiers, many OEM’s also recognised Fibox production processes; which are currently being optimised, provided important advantages in large-scale production and offered the ability for customers to achieve price premiums on many of their principle products and systems.

Whether our enclosures are required in aluminium or thermoplastic; customers from Fibox's client list now includes companies whose products and applications are vital to the transport, utilities, renewable energy, marine and telecom industries; all of which demand a variety of enclosure products suited to their specific manufacturing methods and must adhere to their wide-ranging regulatory obligations.

In serving both traditional and emerging markets, Fibox recognised today’s changing industrial dynamics and understand their client’s needs for flexibility, and in turn, appreciate the flexibility for them to meet all their customers demands. Therefore the ability to deliver quality-engineered products in ever shorter lead times is critical. Time-to-market for new products is decreasing; meaning more specialist products are created based on a made-to-order basis and even occasionally manufactured as one-offs, while at the same time the complexity and variety of those products are increasing.

Over the years, more and more OEM customers have partnered with Fibox in order to benefit from the company’s experience in designing its products from the ground up. It does this as a way to maximise performance and minimise costs and many have come to depend on years of experience to see a better, faster or more efficient enclosure design, which gives them that competitive edge.

One factor which seems common throughout these diverse industries, is OEMs tend to develop and manufacture families of instruments and devices; therefore the ability to customise different sized enclosures from the same manufacturer to maintain product identity, is obviously of paramount importance.

Many customers have discovered forming a close partnership with an enclosure specialist with the capability to provide a 'one-stop-shop' for all the specifiers various requirements, not only keeps the project in as few hands as possible from design to delivery, it also ensures cost issues are transparent at every stage. The fewer links in the supply chain, the better the overall control.

Throughout the company’s history, specifiers from varying industries have benefited from the company's vast experience gained as a leading manufacturer of enclosure products. Using this vast industry know-how, the company's product managers have developed an ingrained knowledge that covers all the key topics needed to advise customers on enclosure types that have been developed and specifically designed for the housing of a variety of control and automation products and other devices that demand the very best enclosure protection solutions. Being up-to-date with such information can enable designers to increase add-on sales and provide complete solutions and extra service to their customers.

There are two key factors to be taken in, when considering the specifiers ‘value chain’ and those are in relation to their production process. Many companies operate a JIT system; therefore confidence in their supplier’s ability to deliver is crucial. Credible suppliers must be able to demonstrate their ability to meet agreed deadlines time after time. Running alongside this is the issue of quality. Modern injection moulding techniques virtually guarantee continuity in the quality of the products being produced. A couple of manufacturers even use robots to inject molten gasket material into their enclosures to guarantee consistent quality. The result of all of this is no disruption to the client’s production due to QA rejections.

It is said imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. As with many other areas of the electrical and electronics manufacturing industry the enclosures sector has not been spared from the insurgence of copycat products from the Far East. But looks, and more importantly promises, can be deceptive. The old adage of ‘you get what you pay for’ undoubtedly pertains. As detailed above, there is so much more to specifying a fit for purpose enclosure than just asking for the box. Only those manufacturers and suppliers serious about serving their clients' value chain in total will succeed.

So what does the future hold for Fibox and the UK thermoplastic enclosure industry? In some respects those of us who are seen as the main players are the masters of our own destiny. Only those manufacturers willing and able to invest heavily in market driven product development, state of the art production technology, in-depth stocks and employee development will be equipped to offer the sort of first class customer service being demanded by the markets.

It is also important not to ignore the importance quality distribution plays, and will continue to play, in the strategy of the leading enclosure manufacturers. Reliance on local stock and trained sales personnel is crucial to the future of the industry. Once again, those producers willing to invest time and resource in maintaining a proactive distributor network will be able to serve the diverse enclosure buying market.

With companies in many industries facing an uncertain future, the climate of fear and uncertainty is causing many businesses to focus on the short term. However, with proven expansion behind them and a planned strategy for continuing long term development in front of them, Fibox is growing fast worldwide, and this is particularly so in Europe.