Ensuring the quality of our products
Our Quality Department employs 35 people across four specialist areas.
Product Quality, Supplier Quality, Production Quality and Distribution Quality.
A cross-functional unit is responsible for managing certifications, laboratories and the digitisation of quality data.
Organising quality
Quality cannot be imposed; it must be integrated into every stage of the process, from product design through to installation at the customer’s premises, and far beyond, as all our furniture comes with a 10-year guarantee and a 25-year guarantee on metal parts.
Each division is responsible for its own area: ensuring product compliance and performance, guaranteeing the reliability of supplies, ensuring the strict application of production standards, guaranteeing quality right through to the consumer, and reporting any non-conformities detected within the network.
- Product Quality ensures product compliance and performance, from development through to the production lifecycle.
- Supplier Quality ensures the reliability of supplies and manages quality crises with suppliers.
- Production Quality ensures that quality standards are rigorously applied to manufacturing processes.
- Distribution Quality ensures the quality of the flow from production to the end consumer and acts as the channel for reporting quality issues detected in the network.
- Excellence Quality manages certifications, laboratories, quality data and digitalisation.
Certifying our processes and products
We hold system and product certifications: these attest that our processes and products meet stringent standards, which are regularly audited by third-party bodies.
Find out more about our certifications
Durability testing
Our laboratories systematically test the strength, durability and compliance of our furniture. At Groupe Schmidt, a drawer undergoes 125,000 open-close cycles (compared to 60,000 cycles under the NF Ameublement standard), a worktop is tested for resistance to heat, humidity and scratches, and fronts are tested for resistance to UV rays, humidity and temperature fluctuations.
Thefinished products laboratory tests the product’s performance in its final configuration, exactly as the customer will use it: strength of the joints, long-term durability, compliance with safety standards and performance.
The components laboratory tests individual components: handles, fronts and worktops.
These tests confirm that our products deliver on their promise of durability:a 10-year guarantee on furniture and worktops, and a 25-year guarantee on metal parts and hinges.
Digitising to stay ahead
We also digitise quality: analysing after-sales data, creating quality performance indicators (KPIs), monitoring digitisation projects, and mapping non-conformities.
These tools enable us to anticipate deviations, identify recurring issues and take corrective action before a problem becomes widespread. Analysing feedback from the field allows us to continuously improve our design, manufacturing and distribution processes.
But here too, data helps us make decisions. It does not decide for us. The indicators guide our choices, but it is the quality teams who analyse, diagnose and decide what action to take.
Leaving the final decision to people
Despite the increasing automation of checks (vision cameras, dimensional detection algorithms, automatic control systems), the final decision remains a human one.
Before a part is dispatched to a customer, an employee checks that it meets the required standards. This requirement ensures thatno anomalies pass through the final quality control stage.
Technology helps us to detect, measure and compare. But it is the employee’s eye and experience that confirm the product is fit for the customer. This requirement is not a hindrance to productivity; it is a guarantee of reliability.
Our approach to quality is based on a conviction: quality is not only checked at the end of the chain, but is incorporated at every stage. From the selection of suppliers to installation at the customer’s premises, every link in the chain contributes to the promise we make: furniture designed to last, designed to enhance your life.
