Trusted supplier moves to new premises

"We are going back to the roots." With this statement, Roberto van den Berg, account manager at REHAU, opens the conversation. By this, Van den Berg is referring to the move of the Dutch REHAU office from Nijkerk to Amersfoort. "After all, that's where we once started," he says with a laugh. As of January 2020, REHAU will be operational from Amersfoort.

Why the move? Van den Berg explains: "We had both our office and warehouse in Nijkerk. This used to be very convenient, however, due to the optimization of our logistics at the parent company in Germany, today we can deliver faster directly, than through our Dutch warehouse. Therefore, we said goodbye to our stock in the Netherlands. That made the old building in Nijkerk inefficiently large."

Departments centralized together

Those who order on time get everything delivered quickly from Germany. With REHAU's product pallet increasing, Van den Berg says it was also no longer possible to be fully stocked in Nijkerk. What does not change is the service customers receive. "That will be even better, because in the new building we rent one space, where our  departments are brought together. Working centrally means shorter lines of communication, direct cooperation and thus being able to respond more flexibly to our customers' requests," Van den Berg lists.

So the alarm sounds before the window has been touched at all!

Expansion of profiles for the Dutch market

REHAU is known for listening to requests from the market, so also in the Netherlands. The development of the Synego NL profile is the best example of this. "After its introduction, we put our ear to the market. The profile was very well received, yet some wishes remained. We have now managed to fill in those missing profiles and they will be available from the end of this year."

Doing more around the window

"That is REHAU's motto," Van den Berg continued. "In that context, we are proud to announce a new product line, namely the Smart Guard alarm system. This concerns a completely wireless alarm system that works a little differently than what people are familiar with. Regular alarm systems only go off after a burglary is already a fact. Smart Guard consists of a sensor mounted in the window frame. If an uninvited guest remains in front of the window, the first registration is made by the motion sensor. This lets the person know via an LED that he or she has been detected. Phase 2 takes effect if this person remains standing, the LED starts flashing. If this is still no reason to leave, a loud beep is heard in phase 3.  So the alarm sounds before the window has been touched at all!"

What about feedback to the property owner? Van den Berg: "The system will soon be linkable via a Smart Homebox, this is already available in Germany, we are now working on the Dutch version. With a smart app, the owner of the property will be alerted, possibly even immediately put through to a central alarm center."

Finally, Van den Berg reveals another small tip of the hat: "We have had an ingenious ventilation system in place for some time that is an integral part of our profile. We are now looking at how we can introduce it in the Netherlands."