For new managing director, Rainer Sawitzki, the future is looking very bright. Rainer has been with the company for 20 years and has therefore witnessed its growth from an agency for other blinds products into the major force that it is today within the industry.

It is 25 years since Bl¶cker developed its own pleated blind system “ Cosiflor “ which enabled it to expand its marketing to encompass, for the first time, an export. From a small company selling only into its domestic market, Bl¶cker now sells to 30 countries and is looking to expand this annually. The latest addition to the impressive list of markets served by Cosiflor is Bulgaria, with a new agent there planning to start production of pleated blinds at the end of March.

In Germany, and indeed much of mainland Europe, the market for pleated blinds is mostly for freehanging blinds in both commercial and domestic property. In the UK, however, the pleated blind is, at the moment, almost exclusively used to shade conservatories “ a feature of the housing market not widely seen elsewhere.

The use of pleated blinds for conservatories throws up a number of manufacturing issues special to the UK, particularly regarding shape. Whilst the walls of a typical conservatory will be able to use a conventional pleated blind, the roof poses a much greater problem. Very few conservatories have rectangular roofs; most indeed opt for the ˜traditional' Victorian design with many small, triangular panels. To make the shading effective, these all need to be covered so any pleated system needs to be able to accommodate these odd sizes.

The original Cosiflor system was always quite good at being able to fill these shapes but the complexity of the demands in UK needed something even better. For the last five years or so, Cosiflor has been very active in the UK, especially through the hard work of Arding Marketing and its partners here such as Sampson's, AMO Blinds and Appeal Blinds, these companies have provided considerable feedback to the Bl¶cker R&D team in Bremen so that the new system would incorporate features that would make our particular requirements easier to manufacture and even more important to install .

A testament to this market specific input is that sales of Cosiflor blinds have increased dramatically year-on-year since they were first launched here.

Introduction of the new system

The new Cosiflor system was launched at the R+T exhibition in Stuttgart in February 2006 and is still being rolled out around the world. Whilst it is inherently a development of the previous system “ in that it still shares some of the same components “ it has been completely redesigned and uses far fewer components.

Since the introduction of the first Cosiflor system, many changes have been made to improve the product and, over the years, this led to a substantial increase in the number of components. The decision to redesign the product was taken about four years ago with a target of reducing the number of component parts by 25%. There was a separate brief to simplify the manufacturing process and improve both the design and ergonomics. The new system now has 380 possible components to make the wide variety of shapes and sizes, down from over 450.

Pleated blinds are not difficult to make or install “ as long as you do the preparation! To make things easier for the surveyor, manufacturer and fitters, Bl¶cker has developed its own software which is particularly useful in the UK which has been described as ˜the complex end of the blinds market'. The software ensures that the correct measurements are taken, and the right tolerances allowed for so that manufacturing and fitting can process without a hiccup.

Fabrics

Alongside the new Cosiflor pleated production system Bl¶cker has worked very hard to introduce a new range of fabrics that will appeal to all of its customers. The company has always used several outside suppliers to produce its fabrics which gives it much greater flexibility and advantages in both design and production.

This close connection with prime suppliers of pleated textiles is a very important one. Most people will be choosing their blinds based on colour. Bl¶cker also believe that pleated blinds are growing in popularity and hence attention to the fashion element of this type of blind should not be ignored. Fabric development is a very important aspect of the Cosiflor range and considerable efforts will be made during 2007 to fully realise the benefits of a broad based sourcing policy. Style and structure will become equal in importance to colour and pricing.

Over a two year period, the new fabric range was whittled down by the design team from 1500 possible colours and designs to 280, taking into account fashion trends, market specific requirements and colour forecasts. These include domestic and commercial quality fabrics, special coatings such as pearlising for roof blinds, and fire retrardency.

All fabrics are checked by the weaving mills before shipping in to the Bl¶cker warehouse in Bremen and again by the company prior to despatch to its customers. Collection books are available showing the entire range with an indication of the qualities that the fabric is available in “ FR, pearlised, degree of transparency, etc.

Automation is booming sector for many markets and this is particularly true for blinds and shading products. Whilst it is perhaps a luxury for many freehanging wall blinds, motorising the roof blinds in a conservatory could almost be considered a necessity. In many cases there will be upwards of ten blinds, so to open and close these manually can be a difficult proposition. Bl¶cker has been working with Somfy to develop a range of powered solutions for its pleated blinds which can now be operated individually, or grouped, for maximum simplicity. This will allow roof blinds to be operated independently from wall blinds for example, and for blinds on one side of a conservatory, or room, to open as the sun moves round while those on the other side, close. Remote operation via a computer or mobile phone is another possibility, but we may have to wait a few more months before this system is widely available.

For the future, conservatories are seen as continuing to be a major growth area in the UK but, as pleated blinds become more established here, we could easily see a growth of this type of blind in any room in the house, or office. With such a broad range of fabrics now available the decision as to which type of blind to choose can now include pleated blinds for all applications. 

• Blocker / Arding Marketing Tel: 01342 713923