Since the managers of the Brammer company in the Mykolaiv region are believers, one of them, commercial director Maksym Sosnov, on the very first day of the war, printed out and sent out Psalm 90 to everyone: “The Lord said: “I will save him who trusts in Me puts whoever believes in Me and calls for help ” with a recommendation to learn it by heart. Here’s how he talked about it in our conversation:

– I turned to God with a request to save our team, and business. I believed that God would not allow the enemy to get close to it and destroy it. And indeed: after the battles in Voznesensk on March 9-13, the Russian army was stopped 35 kilometres from our production, and then pushed back more than 100 kilometres. Now, when we are no longer so close to the front-line zone, the company is starting its work after a long period of downtime and is ready for a new stage in its history. Employees who were not mobilized go to work or work remotely. We do not manufacture the product yet, but we are actively preparing to start production.

In the conditions of martial law, the domestic furniture market significantly reduced its needs and largely reoriented them. As a result, demand also fell for the traditional furniture products of the metalworking company, which is “Brammer” (its main pre-war products were metal frames for beds, school desks, street and garden furniture, etc.).

– Now we are also reorienting ourselves, intending to establish the production of light and cheap metal beds for mobile folding construction. Reliable and convenient not only in refugee accommodation centres but also in military units, even directly in front-line dugouts. We are currently developing such models, some according to NATO standards (some are already at the stage of experimental samples) and at the same time, we are looking for new sales channels for such products and new customers. We expect that the Ukrainian Association of  Furniture Manufacturers will also contribute to this. We can quickly set up the production of other metal products that someone needs. For example, racks and other products.

– That is, there is someone to deal with setting up the release of new products and their subsequent production – do we mean the personnel potential, which has decreased in most manufacturers at this time for known reasons?

– Unlike our colleagues, whose production is in the deep rear, we have a more significant outflow of male workers in the almost front-line territory. Most of our employees have changed their work uniforms to military uniforms: some are voluntarily in territorial defence units, which have been strengthened here, and some are mobilized to the front. In particular, one of our managers is technical director Oleksandr Shevchenko. But he finds an opportunity to be useful, so to speak, on “two fronts”. He regularly maintains contact with the team, and is aware of all our affairs – in fact, to the extent possible, he performs his official duties remotely, for which we are very grateful to him.

During the preparation for the serial production of beds, we will eliminate the shortage of personnel that arose with the beginning of the war by inviting more or less qualified people from among the displaced persons to our workshops. Many families of refugees from Melitopol moved to us for temporary residence.

Some will have to be taught, of course. For example, for working with welding machines, which our production is equipped with and which are ready to work again with high precision and high productivity at any moment.

– Metal has always been and remains the main furniture-making material for Brammer company. When thinking about a new project – the production of metal beds – you must have made sure that you will have enough of the necessary metal for it?…

– So. Beforehand, of course, we monitored the market – there is metal in Ukraine. In particular, the profile pipe with which we mostly worked. We also design models of new products for it. In addition, we also have certain pre-war stocks, sufficient for the initial launch of beds.

– Even the fact that the production areas of the group of companies occupy four thousand square meters testifies to the capabilities of Brammer. It’s a shame that such useful space is practically not used as it could be. “Do not hear the noise of the factory”, as is sung in a famous song.

It is very disappointing. Since we cannot yet productively use all our production areas, we are ready to rent them out. We want the Ukrainian Association of  Furniture Manufacturers to know about this: maybe one of the colleagues at UAFM will have a rental need (until the war ends, unfortunately, more than one company will face the need to relocate them to safer regions in order to save their production ). We are ready to provide industrial shelter to those who find themselves in such trouble, and of course to fellow furniture makers. And not only the production side: there are premises for administrative needs and even for living.