COMAX Roofs: we produce Czech roofing materials with a pedigree in Velvary
The notion of honest Czech roofing has faded away in recent years, but as the classic says, times are changing. In our industry this is confirmed by the Roofs Comax division, which under the auspices of its parent company METAL TRADE COMAX produces modern lightweight aluminium and galvanised steel roofing with the official stamp of a Czech product in Velvar. The company places special emphasis on the quality of its own painting with a wide range of surface finishes. The production division, which has 40 employees and a turnover of around CZK 650 million, is inexorably heading towards becoming one of the leading domestic roofing manufacturers.
Our guides to its production, sales and warehouse facilities, which we were able to see together, will tell you more.
"When I joined the company eleven years ago, we only had a small company shop with four employees. As part of gradually building our market position, a key decision made by our owner in 2014 was to invest 40 million crowns in a new production and warehouse facility. The number of employees was subsequently increased to twenty and our machinery and overall facilities continued to develop, which we expanded in 2018 by another 2,000 m2 of production and storage space," says Karel Fišer at the beginning, adding that up to 10,000 tonnes of aluminium and galvanised materials are produced and delivered to customers in Velvarie annually.
Roofs for Czech Quality
Despite these numbers, COMAX Roofs is so far one of the smallest divisions of the parent company METAL TRADE COMAX, which is a traditional and currently also the only manufacturer of continuously coated sheet metal in the Czech Republic. With continuous production, its line in Velvare can paint 150 tons of sheet metal per day. To give you a better idea, the COMAX Group, which has a total of four production plants and nearly 600 employees, sells over 220,000 tonnes of products annually to about thirty countries around the world. "We came up with the idea of producing roofing materials from our coated sheet metal about fifteen years ago. We were trying to capitalise on the production of semi-finished products from our parent company. Today, we are one of the ten largest roofing manufacturers and we are doing well despite the decline in orders from the construction industry. We attribute this to the quality of the Czech product and the customer service, which includes fast delivery of a wide range of painted materials, including atypical products. Our own painting line, which is located near our premises, is undeniably one of the great competitive advantages," says Pavel Protiva.
Since 2016, COMAX roofing tiles have been the holder of the "Czech Product" trademark, which is easily recognizable thanks to the logo with the typical Czech lion. "We are duly proud of it and we perceive that customers are hearing about it more and more. With the Czech Product brand we show that we only produce quality. I think that we have stood up to the times of covide, when it was not easy to provide enough material or to maintain the quality of alloys or galvanizing, and we are also holding up in the current crisis, when investors are carefully considering what they will buy with their money. I would say that we have made a really strong start in recent years. For this year we want to be among the top three Czech roofing manufacturers in terms of stability, brand and quality, which we will also present more to end customers," continues the product manager.
His colleague Karel Fišer notes that the most important customers are mainly wholesale partners. However, they are also expanding their customer portfolio to include contractors and craftsmen who have the opportunity to experience the quality of COMAX Roofs' products with their own hands. "We are very pleased that this year we have trained around 250 plumbers in our centre, which is very important for the development of the brand. Thanks to this, we have more orders, we are getting more and more interesting projects with our materials and we are keeping our growth potential," says the director of the division, from which the roofing products are also going abroad. Particularly to Slovakia and England, where, thanks to the dealership, the company manages to export about one truckload of exclusively aluminium materials per month. However, the priority remains production, sales and awareness-raising activities on the Czech market, where the company cooperates, among others, with an experienced plumber and trainer František Žíla or with plumbing apprentices from nearby Stochov, whom it invited on an excursion in June.
They also included a practical demonstration of working with COMAX Falc, which is one of the product trends of recent years, together with COMAX Klik and COMAX BoCo small-format templates. This is especially true for roofing with an aluminium core. "In particular, corrugated roofing is a traditional solution that architects and planners like to seek out. We can offer them a very wide range of colours, and we also see room for continuous quality improvement in both aluminium and steel core roofing. After all, these are materials whose use and added value is based not only on good design but also on craftsmanship. The top quality of these products and the professional technical support, which we call plumbing assistance, is therefore justified," explains Pavel Protiva.
TRADITION AND HONEST BEHAVIOR ARE THE STAR
Customer service is considered an integral part of any manufacturing company's sales, which, in addition to proficient salespeople, also needs skilled technicians who can advise and help on the ground. Architects and investors are then happy to accommodate with a variety of design requirements. "Starting from an area of 400 m2, we can offer customers almost anything from a range of around 800 shades, in combination with a finish that can be based on gloss or matt polyester varnishes or premiere polyurethane varnishes. Increasingly, we are working with lighter shades to eliminate overheating in attic spaces. We already have paints that are able to reduce UV absorption by up to 30%," explains the product manager at Roofs by COMAX.
The basis of successful trading, he says, is luck with good partners and also one value that has been somewhat forgotten, like Czech quality. "It's good manners that help us to grow in the market. Customers know that we keep our word and that they can rely on us even in uncertain times," emphasises Pavel Protiva. Reliability means, for example, that they deliver stock materials to customers within ten working days and are able to deliver atypical orders within four weeks. Of course, depending on the type of roofing material, the guarantee of functionality for 20 to 75 years is a matter of course. "We like to tell our customers that we produce Czech roofing with a pedigree. We pride ourselves on this, as well as on the tradition of the Czech company, which put the original forging plant into operation more than 80 years ago and the first painting line 50 years ago," recalls Karel Fišer.
In the near future, they intend to launch a new small-format roofing made of zinc, which will be more affordable than the dominant aluminium roofing in this segment. They are also developing accessories such as snow barriers, roof bridges, chimneys, penetrations or elements for anchoring photovoltaics. The COMAX Roofs brand is thus moving towards a system solution in the production and sale of roofing materials. "Our current key objective is to create a coherent marketing strategy and strengthen the brand. We want to be visible not only on the web and social media, but also at trade fairs. We are going to the Roofs Prague trade fair again, we will also exhibit in England and we would like to exhibit in Germany, where we already have a sales office," adds the director, who wants to strengthen his team with new sales, technicians and production staff in the near future.
WE WORK AS ONE FAMILY
We took a closer look at the production of COMAX roofing products with production manager Pavel Bartos, who started at the company as a temporary worker a few years ago. "I remember very clearly how we started in one small room with a few racks of sheets and one old pair of scissors. Even though we are still growing in production and have moved on technologically and in terms of personnel, I am still motivated by the fact that our team is family-based. I really appreciate the human approach and the family atmosphere we have here," says our production guide, which has developed in line with the demands of the construction market and also with the vision of the sales team. Investments in individual machines would hardly have found adequate application without a well-thought-out expansion of the roofing portfolio.
Investments made over the past years are visible at almost every step of the way at COMAX Roofing. The growth of the company is supported by the owner in every aspect, as we saw as soon as we entered the modern showroom with branded products. The current production includes a total of seven types of metal roofing, among which we can also find the traditional Alukryt, trapezoidal sheet, profiled tile in Maxi and Mini formats as well as large-format corrugated sheet. The range also includes natural and painted rolls and sheets. For the finishing of sheet materials, they use complete equipment such as dividers, plate shears, rewinding lines, automatic bending machine or the Variobend double-sided hydraulic CNC bending machine, which the company has as one of the few in the country. Another technical attraction is the so-called foiling of metal sheets, which are thus protected against damage during assembly.
Automated profiling lines are at the heart of production, including, once again, a top-of-the-range Schlebach machine, which is designed to produce the standing groove for the popular COMAX Falc roofing material. "We are constantly renewing our machinery, buying components and thinking about more technically demanding plumbing products. That's why we also have sheet metal bending machines or a jig for window and chimney flashing. For these often atypical jobs, we need to demonstrate craftsmanship and precision. Our plumbers and technicians not only work from the supplied documentation, but if necessary they will go directly to the site, measure everything, inspect it and recommend the most suitable solution to the customer," says Pavel Bartoš, who believes it is essential that they are able to continuously innovate their products towards even higher quality, stability and safety of roofs.
Examples include the improvements to the COMAX Klik roofing system, which has managed to innovate both the profiling and the locking system, making installation easier and faster. "We try to go with the trends and show innovations that secure roofs and extend their life. We start with the material itself and its quality, and continue with the forming, whether using automated lines or expert roofing craftsmanship, for which we want to create the best possible conditions," concludes one of our guides to the world of roofing with a pedigree and the hallmark of Czech quality. We can only wish them continued success in the years to come, if you want to call it continuous, which is a word that exactly matches the nature of the sheet metal painting process in the parent company METAL TRADE COMAX.
This article was published as a report in the magazine Střechy-Fasády-Izolace
Author: Tomáš Svoboda
