Catas, the most important European laboratory for trials and tests in the wood-furniture sector, closed 2022 with positive results: just under 45,000 tests carried out, a turnover of over 7 million euros, around 200 hours of training put available to operators and companies from Catas Academy, through webinars, meetings, seminars in Italy and for the foreign market.

The staff is also growing with 56 units destined to increase again thanks to the hirings scheduled in these first weeks of 2023.

"A 2022 that pleasantly surprised us - commented the director of Catas, Franco Bulian - if we think of the climate of concern in which it began, amidst the uncertainties of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine which led to the closure of three markets, Ukraine , Belarus and Russia, where we generated about 4 percent of our turnover".
 

Awareness and attention to sustainability is growing

Catas was able to achieve these results also thanks to the activities launched in 2022, first of all the supply of testing machines designed and built by Catas Engineering, which allow furniture manufacturing companies to keep the quality of their products under control.

The new service launched by the laboratory "The Life Cycle measured by Catas" has also proved to be decidedly profitable: today that the markets around the world are increasingly attentive to sustainability issues, the companies that turn to Catas to objectively measure the environmental impact of a raw material, a semi-finished product or a finished product according to the internationally recognized principles of the LCA-Life Cycle Assessment.

It should also be noted that in recent years consumers have become increasingly careful in choosing safe and reliable products. "A scenario that is undoubtedly the result of both a greater awareness of individuals and even more decisive and coherent international standards which have, as their ultimate goal, the best quality of life for everyone" - Franco Bulian argued.

 

A complete and competent offer

In the face of a continuously growing Italian market, the tests and trials carried out for customers from all over the world today represent 35 percent of Catas' entire activity. In 2022, in particular, there was a significant increase in orders arriving from China, where many manufacturers have to meet the strict specifications that the global furniture distribution giants impose on them. Catas offers 360-degree expertise and experience: in fact, it carries out not only tests according to the reference standards on the performance of a chair, a mattress or a table, but fire reaction tests rather than on the quality of the surfaces, tests mechanical tests on paints and adhesives. "Those who turn to Catas - explains Franco Bulian - know they can count on engineers, wood-furniture technicians, chemists able to support them, in a short time, with tests and certifications thanks to which they can define new products or implement and further improve consolidated production processes”.
 

Thirty years of the CQA-Catas Quality Awards

In 2023 Catas will celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the CQA-Catas Quality Awards. Just in these days Catas has reached the prestigious milestone of 200 certified products, from panels to paints, from semi-finished products to furnishing elements. The anniversary will also be celebrated by the birth of the new "VOC Low Emission" certification which will be recognized to products that demonstrate that they limit the emissions of volatile organic compounds within the most restrictive thresholds.

 

Catas: the objectives for 2023

For Catas, the year that has just begun is already full of activities, investments and programs in the three offices in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, in Lombardy and in the Marches. In San Giovanni al Natisone (Udine), the design and construction of the expansion of the building that houses the Fire Laboratory and the Mechanical Laboratory will begin, with an additional 2,400 square meters on three floors.The headquarters in Lissone, in the province of Monza and Brianza, has involved a growing number of companies in the Brianza furniture industry in recent years and this success has led it to renew and expand the number of machines and equipment available. During 2023, the activity of Catas Point Pesaro, born in 2021, will be further consolidated. Already last year relations for trials and tests were defined with many important companies in the area, as well as the start of courses and seminars which will certainly receive new impetus from the moving of the structure to a new and larger location.

Catas will also be present this year for the first time at some foreign fairs and events to demonstrate its international vocation and the desire to be more and more directly present wherever in the world there is a need to measure performance and results for the wood sector -furniture.