Founded in 1962 by Gunnar Sten and Edgar Bøckmann, Böckmann in Fredrikstad has been owned by Vikeså Glassindustri since 2020 after an eventful company history.

A total of 13 employees work at the production in Fredrikstad and in a sales office / warehouse in Oslo. Head of IT Erik Røed talks in an interview about the company, about his experiences with the LiSEC software and about the common denominator with LiSEC: trust.

LiSEC: Mister Røed, which facts about Böckmann do you think are particularly important and what makes the company so special?
Erik Røed: Böckmann mainly produces cutted and processed float- and laminated glass, which we also manufacture ourselves. We also supply IGU, tempered glass and fire protection glass as well as glass supplement products. Our main customers are Norwegian glass processors, facade builders and glass interior design companies. 

Our latest products are new series of handrails / balustrades, launched on the Norwegian market under the Norbeslag brand. 

Our USP is very clear, it is the good delivery times in combination with the correct delivery at the right time. That is what makes us unique, and that is what makes customers to trust us. The whole thing only works with optimal software in the background, and we found that with LiSEC.

LiSEC: What are your business goals and where is your strategic focus?
Erik Røed: Our main goal is to be the preferred glass supplier in Norway. We will achieve this goal through high quality delivery, great delivery times, an uncomplicated service and the best employees. 

Now our main focus is on maintaining our current customer base and helping our customers to get better. We opened a warehouse / sales office / showroom in Oslo in February 2021 to maintain and increase our placement in Oslo and the surrounding area. 

LiSEC: When and how did the cooperation with LiSEC start?
Erik Røed: The cooperation with LiSEC has already existed for many years and includes, for example, a fully automatic cutting table, a fully automatic frame bending machine with roll profiling and welding, a semi-automatic cutting line for laminated glass, IGU lines, etc. In 2009 we successfully switched the production software on LiSEC GPS.order and GPS.prod. 

GPS.order accelerates and automates the processing of offers and orders. This means that all our attention can be devoted to our customers. Further advantages are the automatic delivery date and production checks when an order is entered, as well as customer loyalty through automated customer communication and electronic data exchange. Prod helps us organize our production process. The software covers the areas of production planning, scheduling, glass cutting optimization, sequencing and post-cut management. This gives us an overview of the ongoing production, we receive warnings about the machine utilization rate and bottlenecks, and we are flexible in reporting. 

After a few test runs with other systems in recent years, we are finally back at LiSEC in 2021. Over the years when we had tried another solution, we had never been really satisfied with the level of service or what the system was able to offer. That is why we decided to return to the "safe" LiSEC solution that we knew from before.

We use LiSEC GPS.order and GPS.prod, as well as idents for the various stations. These are used via a cloud software with the advantage that we can access to it from many places and we don't need a separate server for it. 

I would like to highlight the very good cooperation with the support office in Dubai. We have a quick response time for our questions, and if we need some information about products etc our sales representative, Andrew Winkler, is always ready to help. 

But the most important thing is the USP that we have from the LiSEC software on the product side, namely the high level of output that can be extracted from the system: both for traceability through sales and production, but also for reports. With the correct input of values into the system, we can generate almost all reports that we need and help to optimize the entire flow of production, with tracking, and at the same time keep an eye on them.

LiSEC: Above all, LiSEC would like to embody 3 characteristics towards the customer: reliable, competent and innovative. How would you describe LiSEC?
Erik Røed: We can best reflect these qualities using the supplied LiSEC software. So far, the system has only failed for a total of 5-10 minutes - reliable: a clear yes from us! The LiSEC software covers all of our business needs - competent: here also a clear yes! It is a complete system that covers all the needs for our company today. And innovative to the last point: Compared to other systems that we have tested, the LiSEC system is absolutely innovative. Hopefully LiSEC will develop steadily over time (as before) in order to be able to cope well with future challenges. The software could always develop further, because the perfect system never exists.

LiSEC: What changes are you experiencing in the market and what are your plans for the future? 
Erik Røed: The change in the market is mainly the pressure from other countries. The import in Norway is very high. The facade customers not only bring glass and profiles from other countries, but also the corresponding workers. 

The current trend for products is towards larger formats, thicker glass with more functions, and optimization of the insulation values. Glass in general is being used in more and more different configurations / installations, which widens the customer base and gives us the opportunity to diversify our products more. 

We don't want to reveal our future plans yet, but let me say this: for these plans we will need even more software solutions from LiSEC and we are already looking forward to a further cooperation!