Week 16, 2010 – the 1st meeting with the Aaltonens
Since Seungho came up with new idea for our stand, juggling drawing and modeling, we have made it clearer. We have found one plywood moulding company in Salo, a city called woodland in Finnish. Located between Helsinki and Turku, it has many manufacturing businesses around. The name of the company is Formesa and it has been run by Aaltonen family. Seungho and I have sent emails and consulted on the basics of plywood moulding, getting prepared for the first meeting with them.
taken in the bus to Salo
We took a bus to Salo and Rami, the first son of the family, kindly came to the station to pick us up. The Aaltonens was warmhearted and the factory was impressive. Sitting around a table with welcoming coffee and buns, we all examined the model together and tried to figure out the optimum solution for the stand for few hours. There were few issues in discussion, but the main one was putting a cork sheet on top surface of it. Since they have not dealt with pressing cork together with plywood before, it was certainly a challenge for them as well. As Rami promising his best effort on trial, we left Formesa with much lightened heads.
a scenery of the factory, Formesa
Visiting Formesa and talking to the experts in field in person opened our vision about our product wider and helped us understand the material that we were about to use deeper. We were respectful to their professional and sincere attitude toward their job. It was definitely more than worth to visit.