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Here at LMI Solutions in Wigan, we are proud to be the UK agent of Norcan providing multiple solutions to help businesses in their production process, storage solutions, safety guarding and most importantly our clients recommend these products as they are aesthetically designed from our Nocan profiles. I'd like to share with you the history of Norcan and what their products involve.
History of Norcan
Norcan was founded in 1987 in Haguenau by Paul Hannes, former manager of INA Roulements-Schaeffler, the company was taken over in 2014 by Stéphane Fauth, a native of Alsace, who is passionate about the world of industry and who aims to grow the business.
Paul Hannes, a native of Mulhouse, was 63 years old when he founded Norcan with his daughter MarieJosé Lambla and his son Jean-Victor. Interned in the Schirmeck concentration camp during WWII for acts of resistance, engaged in the First French Army after many adventures in Germany, he joined Manurhin in Mulhouse where he was for ten years a highly effective business manager. He was noticed by the brothers Wilhelm and George Schaeffler, owners of the INA Roulements Group (bearings manufacturers), headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria (Germany).
In 1962, they offered him the job of general manager at their plant in Haguenau (today known as Schaeffler France), which then had 100 employees. When he retired in 1984, there were more than 1,400 people. Marked by his war years, Paul Hannes is driven by a “regional patriotism” which led him to say in 1997: “The best way to enrich a region is to found businesses and make them successful by creating the greatest possible number of jobs.” This is a piece of advice that we at LMI put into practice in the UK through process, design and solutions to our customers.
Paul Hannes sold his business in 1987 to INA Roulements in order to set up Norcan. “I felt that aluminium profiles lacked a simple and clever fastening system”, he said. With the engineer, Matthias Keller, whom he recruited onto his team, he developed profile assembly around the standard M8 fastenings without welding.
In the grooves of the profiles a variety of accessories can be attached. “At first, we cut and machine finished aluminium profiles by the metre, but we soon realised that to stand out from our competitors we had to design turnkey solutions”, says Marie-José Lambla, daughter of Paul Hannes and co-founder of Norcan of which she became CEO, while her brother Jean-Victor, general manger, was in charge of logistics and trading. “We are fortunate that our parents got us started. We were all proud, in the family, of having been asked to enter the Stock Exchange on the secondary market. The adventure lasted four years, after which we bought back our shares”, said Marie-José Lambla.
NORCAN underwent a successful change of ownership in 2014. Since then, they have endeavored to effectively redefine themselves from foundations that were solidly built from the past thirty years. "In a constantly changing industrial world, we now want to strengthen our position and extend our expertise by working on three factors at the same time:
improving our own performances,
our technical developments
and our product rollout.
We are delighted to have LMI Solutions onboard as our UK agent and wish them every success"
At LMI our focus is firmly on our customers. Their projects to improve their production facilities are keenly watched by all our employees who have a passion for the industrial world: they are committed to such projects, they have a sense of service and we are highly demanding, both within our design office and in the implementation of our custom-built solutions.
We are proud to serve all our customers with the same expertise and on projects so diverse that we are required to reinvent ourselves every day: "unlimited creative solutions" fits us like a glove!
By Phoebe Warburton
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