Testimonial > Tormax
By: Lesterius Team
Tags: Clients, Development, Filemaker, Software Development

Testimonial > Tormax

Tormax is a European leader in automatic door system manufacturing. Tormax automatic doors combine innovation, quality and know-how. They are found in hundreds of thousands of buildings around the world including offices, hotels, restaurants, shops, airports, stations as well as on ships. Thanks to the expertise of Lesterius, the handling of door automation and control is done with a single software.

Yves Heylen, Tormax

« Tormax Belgium is a part of the Landert Motoren AG group. We were originally a Swiss company. Here in Belgium, we are specialised in the development of specific systems for automatic sliding doors, i.e., we provide a total solution — not only the drive, but also the panels.

To organise everything from A to Z, we obviously need a software package. We started using FileMaker 17 or 18 years ago. Back then, everything was hard coded, so it was fairly difficult to update the system. In the end, we found ourselves with several independent modules, with no interconnections.

Because of our good experiences with FileMaker, we decided to choose FileMaker again. There are other systems on the market, but I personally don’t think they’re designed for companies of our size. We need a system that is flexible, not one that dictates how the company should operate.

We decided to work with Lesterius two years ago. We started by performing a full analysis of our current system, to give Lesterius a good idea of how we were working at the time. And I must admit that I was surprised at the level of insight that Koen had about our system. »

Koen van Hulle, Lesterius

« The manager quickly explained to us how the company worked on a piece of scrap paper. We had to ensure that there was a link between the department which prepared the quotes and the production department. After an initial analysis, it quickly became apparent that the system had been designed according to extremely old FileMaker principles. This effectively stopped us from continuing with the new objectives they had specified. »

Yves Heylen, Tormax

« The man came with a number of concrete solutions. He had a very good understanding of how we work today and what the problem points were. That immediately gave us a good feeling about the project as a whole. We actually decided right after the analysis phase to start the project, to begin developing our new system. »

Koen van Hulle, Lesterius

« What stayed with me in particular, despite the formidable scope of the project, is that the biggest challenges were not technical, but revolved around the fact that even though people might have been working together for years, you actually still had to bring them together and sit them around a table so they could ask each other questions like, ‘How should we do this?’, and ‘How should we identify our products?’. »

Yves Heylen, Tormax

« That was actually the deal with Lesterius. They would do the development, and we would provide the support. And the more we helped, the more input we gave, the better it is. The whole project did take 18 months. Well, not eighteen months, five days a week. That is, it was spread over one or two days a week, i.e., one or two people who came to work together with us per week. So the people came to work at our company, and still do. People from a branch of Tormax visited us (the branch in Switzerland), because they were curious about our system. I showed them the system, and the first thing they said to me afterwards was: ‘We need that too’.

The system provides you with a better view of your business and your production process, as well as your after-sales service. It allows you to act quickly. It also makes it possible to do your work easier, and allows people to access the right information more quickly. So that has really saved a lot of time, and we’ve become much more efficient. Actually, everything went as planned and as I expected. I’m extremely positive about the software, the collaborative process, the quality, and the knowledge of the staff. »

Koen van Hulle, Lesterius

« You have to keep in mind that software never changes the communication within a company, which end-users sometimes expect: ‘The software knows what to do, so we no longer need to communicate’. But I think it’s important that the communication indeed improved there. Besides the installers and technicians on the job, there is a small team there, with whom we had very close contact. »

Yves Heylen, Tormax

« After one and a half years, these people have become our colleagues. If there is a dinner at the end of the year or after construction, they’re always welcome. For example, should the project be completed tomorrow, and no more updates required, we’d really miss our colleagues. They are part of the group. »