With a reputation as a professional joinery and fit out contractor, Martek has been in the business of designing, manufacturing, and installing bespoke joinery for nearly four decades.
The company, based in Croydon, specialises in high-end, commercial, healthcare, and cinema interiors. Martek’s 40,000 sq ft production facility, based in South London, combines the latest software and machinery for furniture manufacturing, combined with traditional skills and craftmanship.
Like many manufacturers today, Martek is faced with maintaining competitive prices while juggling the rise in material costs, project delays, and the high demands from architects to continually push the limits of manufacturing.
“In the early days, it became apparent that in order to take total control of quality and ensure we could meet deadlines, we needed a solution to manage the entire manufacturing process.” explains Derek Galloway, Managing Director at Martek. He continues, “We work on a lot of high-profile projects from penthouses to state-of-the-art cinemas, corporate offices, and healthcare facilities. Having software that can help us handle the complexity of these designs and efficiently meet the demands of our ever-changing production requirements and schedules is key.”
One of the of the biggest challenges for Martek right now, related to the pandemic, are the cost increases from suppliers.
“Nearly every cost is increasing. We are seeing an average increase of 20% across the board, yet our clients expect our prices to stay the same. For us, the solution to this problem is to focus on efficiency gains.”
To help combat these challenges, Martek, and their team of six drafters, rely on software from Microvellum, an AutoCAD-based design, engineering, and production platform developed for woodworkers.
“Our Microvellum software has been an instrumental component of our design and manufacturing process here at Martek for the past fourteen years. We work with a lot of architects, the fact that Microvellum is essentially an extension of AutoCAD provides us with a seamless transition from the design and approval stage, right into to the production stage of a project.”
“As you can imagine, our work is very bespoke. Whether we’re working on a custom reception desk, the one we built for the technology campus at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, or a theater display, or even the interior of a hospital, our projects can be quite unique. Microvellum helps us and our clients visualise product prototypes in 3D, which reduces errors, and the time it takes to send those prototypes to production, since all the information needed to manufacture the product is contained within the drawing.”
“Our customisable product library is a huge asset for us. It includes the latest hardware and materials which makes ordering easy and efficient. Over the years, our engineers have grown our library in so many ways with new products and options to make it easier for our drafters to detail unique projects.”
“Sustainability is important to us. With Microvellum, we can process multiple projects at once, optimising parts for our Biesse SKILL and Biesse Rover K FT CNC machines simultaneously. This helps minimise material waste and saves time for our production team.”
Through innovations in software, machinery, and their process, Martek has created a business model for success. Recently, this model has fueled their expansion into yet another market, creating a division of the company that helps eliminate single-use plastic from the food supply chain, building flexible furniture products and displays.
“We expect the road ahead to continue to be challenging, it always is. Our success will be measured by the way in which we rise to combat those challenges. And for us, we can be confident that we’ve built business partnerships that will help us tackle anything that comes our way.” concluded Derek Galloway.
