Roller blades made in Orastie catching speed in the West

The lohn system is not just underpaid and poorly skilled work. A proof to verify that is the Romanian experience of the Adidas-Salomon Company, the second sports article maker in the world, after Nike. This company produces roller blades, ski boots and wheels for racing bikes at the Orastie-based ChimSport Company.

The co-operation between the Romanian company with the world giant Adidas-Salomon began three years ago, when Adidas had not even bought the France-based Salomon Company. The French came to Chimica Orastie for a possible co-operation with the Romanian partner.

The experience of the Orastie-based plant in plastic mass injection led to a section of Chimica starting to produce sports equipment for Salomon, a famous maker of skies, snowboards and snowboard fastenings, mountain boots, backpacks and roller blades.

Things went well, so that a year later the ChimSport Company, whose controlling interests are held by Chimica and which makes sports articles for Salomon was established.

The business began with less than 100 employees at first, with the French having come up with the technical endowment and the raw material and the production being carried out under the lohn system.

“The production doubling every year and the quality of our products made the French trust us,” says Elena Bolondutiu, ChimSport manager. The raw materials for the ski boots, snowboard fastenings and roller blades come from France.

The doubling of the production at ChimSport led to the company registering more than 25 billion lei in turnover in 2000, collected from manual work only. The company is currently employing 350 people, most of them coming from Chimica, while the rest are recruited from those unemployed and laid off in the area.

The ChimSport staff was trained by technicians at Salomon for every level and operation the production entails. It is also the French who imposed the weekly targets per sizes and models, which are still observed. After all, the walls of the offices of the management are full of charts displaying the evolution of the production for every item.

ChimSport is currently making ski boots and snowboard fastenings, which are to be released on the market by the end of this fall and be used in the 2001-2002 winter season. A new assembly line for ski boots was opened early this year.

The production of roller blades ended in March and the products have already been sold on the international market. The roller blade production is to be resumed in September or October, when the batches for the next year will be made. ChimSport produces 16,000-17,000 pairs a week and celebrated the pair number one millionth early in June.