This story is about another company from our UAFM family, which the war forced to make significant adjustments to its development strategy and accelerate it rapidly. We are talking about the Kolomyia-based company “Metabox“, whose owner and current manager, Andriy Tkachyk, shared the details.

Even though Kolomyia is far from the front line, Russian aggression, with its unexpected audacity, compelled the head of “Metabox” to halt the usual furniture production at his factory due to the unpredictability of the tragic events unfolding in the country. Despite the tragic day when the siren of distress disrupted the calm February morning, the “Metabox” employees were still at their workplaces, but after consulting, they decided to take a break.

The pause lasted for almost a month. However, it didn’t mean that the company was completely idle. While the usual production buzz was absent from the workshops, the enterprise was not shut down. Finished products were shipped to those customers who could accept them. Urgently, they “requalified” warehouse premises, which temporarily became a humanitarian hub for the city, receiving charitable shipments from Europe, sorting them, preparing new ones, and dispatching them to various regions of the country. Therefore, warehouse workers and the company’s corresponding equipment were busier during this period than in peacetime.

When they adapted to the new realities brought about by the war, they realized that furniture production not only could but should continue. A part of the war-torn country still had ordinary life needs, and those needs had to be met.

– About a month later, – recalls Andriy, – we managed to assemble a team – not in the pre-war composition, but sufficient to restart production – and the factory started operating again. We focused on fulfilling and completing pre-war projects that remained relevant to our clients. And the search for new clients began.”

But with each passing week, it became increasingly apparent to me that things would not return to how they were before the war. For everyone. And for the company as well. The change was necessary due to the dynamic development – and it was urgent. The search for points of effort for such development began, taking into account the company’s real possibilities.

Trends in the industry indicated that domestic furniture production was rapidly reorienting towards foreign markets. And we understood that staying out of this process would be unfeasible for the business and unpromising for the company. Although we had already had several successful attempts to work abroad, the company couldn’t fully enter this process yet – there was no product suitable for stable export. Until recently, there were not enough technical capabilities for the production of such a product. Therefore, the journey to foreign markets had to start from there. And that’s what we did, embarking on this path last year.

– And what steps have you taken on this path?

– We gained our first practical export experience within the scope of our current competence – fulfilling private furniture orders during wartime. We completed several projects in Poland. But that was not enough. It wasn’t the level we aspired to. We also aimed to produce and sell serial furniture. However, to manufacture export-competitive serial products, the production facility needed technical and technological re-equipment. And for that, we needed funds, which we didn’t have. We searched and ultimately successfully used grant opportunities that emerged in the country. We acquired modern machines – multifunctional and highly productive. The need for them turned out to be twofold: for increasing production volumes and reducing order fulfillment times, and for ensuring proper material processing quality in a situation where, for well-known reasons, there was a drain of skilled personnel replaced by less experienced ones. Therefore, the lack of experience is compensated by high-quality equipment, minimizing the human factor’s impact on processing processes. At the beginning of this year, the company practically completed the process of technical modernization. Now we can handle not only private orders, which have long been familiar to us but also large corporate projects for comprehensive furniture with attractive customer delivery terms.

Currently, we are in the process of creating a new product that will become a line or several lines of serial furniture, which we have not dealt with before.

– Do you develop a separate line of serial furniture for export and a separate one for the domestic market?

– No, we don’t. There will be one product line. Universal. We are going to Europe, and we want to be on par with Europeans. Therefore, it would be wrong to offer foreigners better or cheaper furniture than Ukrainians.

– Understandably, as long as the war continues, the business will not cease its significant support to the army. What does it entail for your company now?

– We provide free assistance to military units, primarily newly formed ones, with the furniture they need if there are such requests. This mainly includes tables, beds, and cabinets. And like any Ukrainian company with employees currently on the front, we support our soldiers not only morally, maintaining contact with them but also materially.