Quality, service and financing are the three pillars on which the traditional door factory is relaunched with a marketing way that allows a permanent stock of 1,500 doors, ready to be withdrawn when the customer decides it.
“With the incorporation of my son,Mariano Mizzau, we accelerated the times of manufacture and delivery”, says Alejandro Mizzau, owner of Mizzau S.A.” A huge economic effort enabled them to reach 1,200 units a month today. “Those who phone us will be surprised when they be told to come and pick up the doors they need, the moment they need them and with a financed payment.
With a know-how that began almost 90 years ago with his father, a wrought iron artist dedicated to creating bars that still decorate the doors, balustrades and elevators of countless Buenos Aires residences, the Mizzau always dedicated themselves to metals, passing from the artistic smithery to the manufacture of openings for doors and windows of excellent quality, and then, finally, to the doors and operators of elevators that today compete with an important participation in the internal market.
“Until two years ago we manufactured the doors we sold, on demand,” says Don Alejandro. We received the purchase order and got to work. But then I noticed that the service was a paw that lacked all of this. So, what have been done? A great production was made, a great stock, which required a great effort, personal and economic. This change has to do with Mariano, my son, mechanical technician and Lic. In Marketing, president of the company, which deals with what is marketing, the purchase of raw material and the sale of the finished products. I am still in charge of manufacturing and die-cutting. This modality brought a huge benefit at a strategic level and we have gained competitiveness. ”
The company manufactures the floor door comprising the floor door mechanism, the operator for the cabin and a wide variety of combinations of door leaves with central, lateral opening, with standard or special measures, custom made. The operator has an electronic version and an electromechanical version.
We visit the factory plant where some days are stored up to 220 tons of iron sheet to manufacture the mechanism and operators and part of the sheets that are then coated in stainless steel. Mizzau has the share of Siderar, the only manufacturer in the country that demands payment in cash, which does not prevent their doors can be acquired with financing by the installer or economic feat that is made possible thanks to excellent management of the company . “At the moment we consume about 17 tons per month,” says Don Alejandro while showing us the modern folding and punching machines of the factory. “I now do a job that goes away in the afternoon. Formerly, it was a manufacturing process that lasted 30, 45 and up to 60 days. Today the customer does not have to wait. And still paying with funding. It was a 180 ° change in marketing. ”
New deposit
A new deposit for less than a year, which is part of the commercial policy implemented by Mariano Mizzau, surprises us with an overwhelming number of doors, located in perfect order and with a great prolixity. “There are 1,500 mechanisms here, 1,500 doors awaiting customers. No one believes us when they call and we offer them to come and look for their doors that same afternoon, they are very surprised when they arrive here. The other day we sold 200 doors. When we told them that they could come and look for them, they were stunned. ”
“Everyone here brought what is standard,” continues Mizzau, “doors of 70, 80 or 90 cm. When there is something special there is no one who manufactures it or who brings it to the country. We do that. At this moment there are 30 or 40 specials in the manufacture of 3 sheets, of 4 sheets, we are making doors of 3 and 4 meters”. In his eagerness to create solutions, this born inventor 20 years ago designed something that did not exist: an exclusive guide of measures for the designer according to the types of door and the measures of the span, taking into account both the width and height of the opening.
Certification
Mizzau S.A. certified its lock and its mechanical lock which is where the landing door engages and consists of an electrical part and a mechanic one. Don Alejandro, a man who doesn’t get intimidated by any challenge, told Revista del Ascensor how the process was.
“When it came to certification, I found it very well and I applauded it. When the expiration dates arrived in 2015, I started to prepare on my own a device that I took to the INTI but it did not work, because to comply with the 60 cycles per minute that the test demands, the route that the operator did was very long, So we reduced it. That was done, there were no problems, and the operator was tested through 1,100,000 openings. The meter, the device, the regulator, the crank, we prepared everything. We had a bad time that coincided with the change of government. The certification took four months in which we made the device, tested it, corrected it and then rehearsed the door operator. I took my people who collaborated on everything. If something got broken, they would call me to ask me and I would approach the mechanics department. INTI provided the flow, technical staff and know-how.
Regarding the protection of the national industry, Alejandro Mizzau expressed his thoughts on this when he stated that “CAFAC was founded for our protection, we are manufacturers of our country, with elements from here and we want not to be harmed by the imported products. Mizzau was always in the defense of the national industry. The Secretariat of Production and Commercial Loyalty have maintained the validity of the Argentine certification for foreign products, as a way to protect the national industry and to ensure its perfect operation in accordance with Argentine criteria. “I have a lot of work with the automatic door at this moment. We must go on protecting the good national industry. For that purpose I am of the idea that the Argentine has to have the best level of manufacturing and certified products to be competitive within our country and with the rest of the world. .
“I only know how to make good things for my fellow men”
Since 1929, the Mizzaus have been forgin iron for different uses. The founder of the dynasty, Don Rosalio, the father of Don Alejandro, borned in the region of Veneto, already worked in Italy as a true artist, where he made carriages. When he arrived in Argentina, using his ability and skills imprint, he succeded inventing objects like an economical kitchen, with which, in addition to cooking, they heated the water of the whole house. Don Alejandro learned from him the work of Vulcan, by the scorching fire; and when the artistic smithy fell into disuse, they began to manufacture metallic carpentry of excellent quality, which is part of homes located in the most elegant areas of Buenos Aires. “We worked for many years doing first-class carpentry, a german invention that we implemented. On Av. Del Libertador in front of the Hippodrome, there are 17 buildings equipped by us “.
When cheap sheet became something common ,Mizzau lost interest in making things that were not to their liking, since the solidity and beauty marked the quality of the work they do at the time. So the company turned to the manufacturing of elevator doors . “I devoted no longer to smithing because I never liked to do things badly, things of por quality. Then I ventured into something that interested me forever and that was was the elevator.
As an important part of the elevator is blacksmithing, we put aside the machine and the electrical part that is not ours, and we focused on the cabin and the doors. We have manufactured all types of doors, from the classic pantographic known as “scissors door”, also those of metal strips that we still manufacture for buildings that do not support the automatics, and we became leaders in the manufacturing of automatic doors of variable frequency and electromechanical ones, of all sizes and shapes. At the beginning, as always, we made them oversized. They were an impregnable fortress. Over time we started made them lighter and today we have an excellent door that fortunately is very demanded. ”
It took many years of preparation and study, because Don Alejandro Mizzau didn’t stay only with the know how he inherited from his father but graduated of the most important argentine technical school “Otto Krausse”. There is no challenge that Alejandro doesn’t dare, nor task representing an obstacle for him if he wants to reach a goal, nor a manufacturing secret that can not be elucidated. As a designer and inventor he is a highly prolific man who has even recently designed a special device to wrap up operators in cellophane to give them greater protection and safety.
Mizzau S.A., the spot where handcrafted skills get along with accuracy technology.
