04 July, 2024It has been 100 years since Domingo Zubiaurre embarked on the business adventure as a manufacturer of metal brushes for industry. His continuators in the company, the third generation, with Eduardo Zubiaurre at the head, have proposed to commemorate the anniversary with the deployment of an investment plan that will provide the project with greater manufacturing and commercial strength. As detailed by its manager, "
JAZ-Zubiaurre's innovative project is very much focused on taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the market and accentuating our role for customers as specialists in mechanical surface treatment solutions".
To affirm these objectives, the company has decided to boost "
the manufacturing capacity of the Eibar factory and our logistics and stock warehouse in the United States, a market in which we sell more than 50 percent of our wire brushes."
The investment program, which will exceed three million euros, will strengthen "
our service capacity", says Eduardo Zubiaurre. "
On the one hand, manufacturing at the Azitain plant will increase by more than 30 percent, mainly in lines for the production of products that are very well received by the North American market. On the other hand, we will expand from 2,000 to 3,500 m2 the logistics warehouse of our subsidiary JAZ USA in New Bedford (Massachusetts)".
The resizing of the industrial and logistics centers is part of a linked strategy: "
The new lay-out and the increased production capacity with automated wire-forming and assembly lines, which will come into service in the fourth quarter of this year, are necessary to reduce current workshop stresses and to have room for maneuver in view of the growth forecast for the coming years". The strengthening of manufacturing in Eibar will also serve to "
expand our inventory and stock in the United States, where we are able to deliver within 24/48 hours to our customers, the same time frame as in Spain".
U.S.A., first market
The importance of consolidating our offer in the U.S. market is due, as Eduardo Zubiaurre points out, to the fact that "
it has been our main sales market for the last five years, accounting for more than 50 percent of our revenues. Moreover, it is a country that demands quality and where our local service model offers us the possibility of continuing to gain market share, given its size and potential, as well as maintaining differentiation with respect to the competition".
The completion of the expansion of the logistics base - currently in the administrative phase of permitting - will be completed by the first quarter of 2025. At the same time, the increased space available will directly benefit the Gipuzkoa-based cooperative Goizper: "
We have been providing them with logistics and administrative services from New Bedford for years for their sprayer products, which are also making great progress in the country".
A century on the wire
Companies, no one can deny it, are always walking on the wire; even in their best moments, an unforeseen event can bring them into the net. For this reason, that JAZ-Zubiaurre celebrates a century of uninterrupted industrial activity is, in itself, a tribute to the work done by all its promoters and teams, especially if we take into account that, in this case, the company has always really walked on the wire, its raw material. Summarizing 100 years in a few lines is easier than combing, curling and creating brushes with perfect barbs, capable of dancing at more than 10,000 rpm, with perfect balance, on metal surfaces. JAZ-Zubiaurre has achieved this, and with a catalog that contains 3,000 references for the preparation of metal tracks for tap dance manufacturing.
It all began in Eibar, in 1924, at the hands of Domingo Zubiaurre, a member of a dynasty of arms polishers. He decided to manufacture metal brushes for industry, a business that had started 50 years earlier in Germany. In an artisanal way, and with all production sold for the local hardware store Unceta, he domesticated the wire. The war, however, destroyed his workshop and marked his record. He overcame and, again from scratch, rebuilt the project. The Spanish economy needed to become more sophisticated.
At the end of the 1950s, stiffened by the lack of foreign currency, it entered the desert of the Ullastres Stabilization. A necessary purge to free the forces of the market and of companies with shortened horizons. Javier Zubiaurre, the second generation, trained at the Armory School and in Tarrasa, found himself back at square one due to the collapse of demand from his only customer. JAZ-Zubiaurre also had to adapt to the change. It launched itself into the market in search of customers and the artisan perspective opened the way to an industrial vision. So strong was the push that, by the early seventies, its brushes were preparing metal surfaces in Germany, the United States and dozens of other countries.
Wire always loses tension
But the wire on which companies walk carefully inexorably loses tension, even if the management manual is followed to the letter. A little more is always needed: ingenuity, vision and some risk-taking, even if someone is shouting from below. As they approached the new century, they built the Azitain plant, they patented products, they were the second brushing plant in the world to obtain ISO 9000, but they noticed that something was missing.
Eduardo Zubiaurre, the third generation, lived those events in first person. He joined the family business in 1989, after studying at the University of Deusto and at an international consulting firm. Together with his father, as commercial director (1995) and manager (1999), they knew they had product and manufacturing quality; however, they lacked what could be defined as 'personality' in the market. Much of their production was distributed around the world in 'white', through large distributors and companies they worked for.
And they solved it in an expeditious way: "
From Javier Zubiaurre, JAZ was born", the battering ram brand with which they launched themselves to conquer the West and Europe. They landed in the United States, in New Beford, in 1999, with a logistics platform where they unloaded resources and energy for more than a decade, until the consolidation of "
a service with a local accent" that now leads its penetration in the international market. A century later, the fourth generation is already walking the wire with the "
primary objective of lasting over time and continuing to grow in a sustainable way", but, as Eduardo Zubiaurre emphasizes, "
we are not closed to anything. The important thing is always the company, its strengthening. If an agreement favors those objectives, it should be studied."
Source: Empresa XXI
