Better by design Fibox

BETTER BY DESIGN

Fibox is a global leader in the design and manufacture of modular plastic enclosures. Philip Yorke talked to Esa Siljander, the company’s CEO about its latest innovative products and its strategy for growth.

Fibox was founded in the 1960’s and was originally part of the Finish Fiskars Group. Today it is a privately owned company based in Helsinki, Finland, and operational in over 15 countries with dedicated local partners worldwide. Since leaving the Fiskars Group in 1991, the company has significantly expanded its manufacturing capability and has added many sales and marketing service centres. Currently there are six major manufacturing sites: three in Finland and one each in Germany, Korea and the USA. In addition, Fibox has more than 10 service centres in Europe as well as many others in the USA China and Korea.

Fibox modular plastic enclosures were the first polycarbonate (PC) enclosures to be introduced in the world and opened up a new era in power distribution panel building.

Today Fibox offers the widest range of high quality enclosures available for the packaging and protection of electrical and electronic components and systems, and these can be provided as standardised configurations or they can be tailor-made to suit a customer’s specific requirements.

Multi-range approach

The comprehensive Fibox range of thermoplastic enclosures features over 1000 different standard products made of polycarbonate, ABS, polyester, fibre glass and aluminium. In all, the company produces over 20 different enclosure ranges and adopts a multi-range approach that is unique to the industry. Fibox is also the industry leader in developing new products and technologies for moulding thermoplastic enclosures and operates two complementary business units: Fibox Enclosure Systems and Fibox Contract Manufacturing.

Mr Siljander said, “Our products are designed to meet an infinite range of infrastructure applications for electrical control panels, devices and components covering all market segments. The renewable energy sector is a growing market for us and we also see a major opportunity for us in China where we expect to be number one in the next five to ten years. There is a lot of competition out there but we remain the industry leaders in relation to product development and innovation. When it comes to the competition, another differentiator is that our customers have the security of being able to trust our products 100%. Furthermore, no one else can match the scope or quality of our product range and our multi-range approach. We see our future growth coming from our continuous expansion into new market sectors and our ongoing investment in innovative new products.”

Innovation creating added-value

Fibox believes that moulding technology is an essential part of product development, and a recent example of this is the Fibox MNX enclosure, which is the first to utilise direct injection of the enclosure gasket material during the body moulding process. This process not only ensures precision moulding of the gasket, but also guarantees superior enclosure protection ratings, particularly for use in hazardous environments. The company is the only manufacturer applying this advanced technology, which was developed in-house by Fibox. Another example is the company’s emphasis on multiple-slide technology for mould construction which provides its OEM customers with cost-effective alternatives for modifying standard enclosures to meet their specific needs.

In addition, Fibox has recently introduced a new range of fibre termination enclosures, which are designed to meet the fibre management, fibre storing and fibre splicing needs of FTTP/H (fibre-tothe-premises/home) networks. This special fibre optic range supports both customers’ premises and network access points and thanks to the small size and snap-lock cover design, offers significant savings on installation costs. Fibox’s FDE fibre management enclosures are designed for multi-dwelling units and for use in small to medium-size enterprise businesses.

However, the company says that just as important as technical leadership is its commitment to understanding the needs of its customers. All Fibox products are therefore designed in close cooperation with its customers and in addition, the company utilises input from its global customer base to produce new, innovative enclosure ranges. This close cooperation also promotes the development of useful accessories and on-going product improvements. Mr Siljander added, “Our main goal is to keep adding value for our customers in order to make their life easier and their businesses more competitive. Working in close partnership with our customers, we offer a range of product design services and for our large-volume OEM customers, we engineer and produce the customised injection moulds and can provide ‘ramp-up’ for their high volume production runs.”

Fibox prides itself in offering long-term customer partnerships with full support during their product’s lifecycle, as well as running and resourcing product development in design, rapid prototyping, tooling and manufacturing. This enables their customers to focus on core business areas and significantly reduces the time it takes to get a product to market.

Cost-effective customisation

All Fibox enclosures can be customised to meet the precise requirements of a customer’s individual application needs by employing the modern machinery that is available at all major Fibox customer service centres. For any customer requiring modification of a Fibox standard enclosure, the company offers design tools for the engineer and technical assistance, as well as CAD drawing files of standard enclosures, which are specially developed for use with all major computer design programes.

Fibox has a large network of local customisation service centres which are equipped with the latest CNC machinery specifically designed for plastic machining purposes. This dedicated customer service effectively takes the Fibox factory closer to the customer’s location, which in turn means an improved and faster service with lower costs. n

Telko Oy

Fibox demands high quality performance from its raw material suppliers as well. One of the company’s long term partners in raw material aquisitions is Telko Oy, a Finnish distributor for chemicals and plastics raw materials. Telko’s extensive customer service covers not only the regular supply of raw materials from local warehouses but also technical support and the development of production processes. Telko’s unique geographical coverage provides considerable synergy in global acquisitions. At the moment Telko is providing services to Fibox not only in Finland, the home market for both companies, but also for example in China.