MF Tech will soon be three years old. The very small business was created by Emmanuel Flouvat and Arnaud Ménard whose main assets when they embarked upon this adventure were a promising technology, i.e., filament winding, skills, expertise and courage to spare. After having carved out a niche for their paddle-sticks, especially on the export market that now accounts for 80% of their production, they are gradually breaking into different markets, ranging from the oil and space industries to top level car racing.
A Technology Appealing to Numerous Industries
In 2006, MF Tech manufactured nearly 3,000 paddle sticks. "Numerous French and foreign canoe-kayak athletes are now using our products, including several world and European champions in different disciplines," explained Emmanuel Flouvat. Although the MF Tech founders worked hard to get where they are today, they have no intention of resting on the laurels they earned in the field of high-level sports. They are now developing new sticks & poles for different specialties such as kayak-polo, a contact sport where sticks tend to break. Cross-country ski poles (now undergoing tests) may be on the market next winter. The business is also targeting golf and looking at how to use filament winding to make golf clubs.
At the same time MF Tech is marketing small filament winding machines , which are unique, for different industries. Several machines have already been sold. "The first machine is for the aeronautics industry and the other will be used by an industry operator in Austria, to design parts for top-level car racing. Yet another machine, which will be delivered to Italy, will be manufacturing tubes for various purposes," summed up one of the business founders. MF Tech's technology appeals to businesses specialized in the manufacture of composite parts. Indeed a growing number are asking MF Tech to put its skills and expertise to work to make tubes, "but we don't know what they're for", joked Emmanuel Flouvat, as well as carbon envelopes to lighten high-speed engines. "We're beginning to do a lot of prototyping for various applications, either electric or mechanical parts, manufactured on a small scale."
Obviously, the oil industry is very interested in the technology for the manufacture of elbow and T-pipes. In the automotive industry, some equipment manufacturers already producing high-pressure tanks would like to adopt the technology engineered by MF Tech. In this area too, projects for developing machines are underway. Even the space industry - whose requirements are so stringent that few industry operators have access to it - is taking a closer look at developments at the small Argentan based business. "Industry operators in this field are really interested in our solutions because the Kuka robots we use in our applications are qualified for the space and aeronautics industries," explained Emmanuel Flouvat.
A Shining Success Providing Food for Thought
Nearly three years after creating MF Tech, Emmanuel Flouvat and Arnaud Ménard can rightly be proud of what they have done. It should be said that while some people read speeches touting the words "innovation" and "competitiveness", Emmanuel Flouvat and Arnaud Ménard are in the field, toiling away either at their customers' facilities or in the workshops, doing everything, from designing and producing machines to handling the business end and backoffice. As a result, they have hired a technician and, more recently, a secretary under the professional training contract program. "If we keep going at this rate, we should be hiring two other people between now and the end of the year. Our goal is to have about ten employees in late 2008. That way we could focus more on our business strategy," they admitted. Their example is well worth studying especially by those who keep "decreeing" innovation but whose efficiency in terms of creating job opportunities falls short of the mark.
