Decayeux has been a world leader in the manufacture of letter boxes since the mid 1970’s. Today Decayeux is part of the DAD group which is made up of 6 different companies each specialised in different domains such as armoured doors, safe boxes, decorative lockings, etc. The company has 240 staff, a depot in Germany and hopes to open depots in the UK and Estonia in the near future.
In addition to its core business which is letter boxes, Decayeux also designs and manufactures doors, door frames, locks, padlocks, etc. The company produces for individual end-user demands (where large DIY stores such as Mr. Bricolage, Leroy Merlin in France are the leading outlets) and collective requirements (e.g., letter boxes for apartment blocks).
TopSolid and Decayeux experience
TopSolid is used for the design of its letter boxes (both individual and collective) and other products such as doors, door frames, locks, etc. Its Design & Engineering Department has 11 TopSolid stations. These products are highly parametric sub assemblies, varying in dimensions and configurations. Before the installation of TopSolid, Decayeux aimed to automate completely the draft documents for manufacturing with dimensions given by the commercial department. Thanks to the possibilities offered by TopSolid to parametrize, design and lay out sub assemblies, a completely updated and packaged solution was delivered to Decayeux.
Since the installation of TopSolid, Decayeux has experienced significant time gains, for example, previously the design of certain door frames took 1-2 days to complete, today the same design with TopSolid takes 1 hour!!. Decayeux produces 5000-6000 letter boxes per day and works with 3000-4000 active plans; it is, therefore, clear that a highly capable CAD system was the right solution for the company. By working closely with Missler Software Services Decayeux has dramatically reduced its design time. The company now aims to further increase productivity gains by incorporating TopSolid’PDM (fully integrated technical data management solution) to enable the Design Department to easily retrieve information on ongoing and past projects.
