André Lacelle
With over 30 years’ experience, André Lascelle has been a team supervisor in tooling design at Merkur for more than 8 years. With academic training as an aeronautical construction technician at the École Nationale d’Aéronautique de St-Hubert, André has been passionate about mechanics and design from an early age!
Knowing and understanding your needs quickly, demonstrating curiosity and flexibility, and possessing consistent multidisciplinary experience in a wide range of application sectors, are all strengths that André and his team members benefit from.
Today, we went to meet André to find out how he supports his customers in their mechanical design projects as a designer. Indeed, who better to shed light on this expertise than André himself!
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Hello André, could you start by telling us what it’s like to work as a mechanical designer at Merkur? Can you tell us about your offer and your expertise?
AL: A mechanical designer can work on both product design and tooling. Both facets of the job are present at Merkur. We tend to find the “product” aspect in product development, and the “tooling” aspect in manufacturing projects, but the two are very closely linked on a day-to-day basis. With our expertise, some designers have even acquired skills in both fields.
Merkur’s Engineering and Manufacturing Projects business unit comprises fifteen tooling designers, who can intervene in various fields: marine transport, recreation, manufacturing and aeronautics. We work with some thirty different customers simultaneously. In 2023, Merkur worked with 300 new customers, 10% directly with the tooling division.
What are the key mechanical design skills you and your team bring to the table, and how can they meet your customers’ specific needs?
AL: We’re all generalists with a wealth of experience. Our various mandates have given us a wealth of knowledge and skills: the importance of knowing manufacturing processes, materials, types of mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic systems, equipment sizes, precision mechanics VS. mechanics for “heavy industry”.
All this knowledge enables us to apply our golden rule: “Keep it simple”, which means designing simply to consider manufacturing cost and efficiency constraints without compromising the quality of the final product.
We work in a multi-disciplinary way and have experience in all fields, but also with different customer and company profiles, from small SMEs to large industrial groups. As far as the technical skills of our designers are concerned, the team has a strong know-how of the software used (Catia, SolidWorks, NX, etc.), which brings expertise to all our mandates.
In my opinion, a good designer must understand the customer’s needs, ask the right questions, and be able to use his network to contact suppliers. A large part of the job is human. It’s a key skill in this business.
Finally, proactivity and adaptability are essential to respond to different customer requests. The best advice I can give is to adopt a simple working technique at the outset, to be able to evolve the design.
And what if we had to highlight one of your team’s main strengths?
AL: What distinguishes a good designer from a very good designer is the ability to constantly renew oneself, to research new processes and working methods, to be curious about new materials, types, strengths and how they react.
Finally, a designer is often a mechanical enthusiast. He’ll take an interest in it even outside the professional arena and expand his skills. They never stop learning: there’s always something new on the market. Today, 3D printing is booming. New machines are being developed. It’s a sector that’s constantly evolving. A good designer looks forward to these new developments.
So, curiosity is key. It’s not necessarily knowledge that counts, but the desire to learn. Learning goes beyond the technical! When I’m looking for profiles, I pay close attention to their hobbies. At Merkur, without exception, all our designers do something special on the side: automotive or mechanical engineering, for example.
So, it’s a real passion job! To give our customers a better understanding of the Merkur approach, can you tell us what Merkur’s added value is in terms of support?
AL: That’s a vast subject, but our added value is rooted in several distinctive elements for our customers!
First and foremost is our close relationship with the customer. We try to understand what the customer has in mind, create a bond, be flexible and listen. The kickoff meeting is essential: ask the right questions based on the customer’s profile, case, production line and site visit. Understanding their needs is our greatest strength.
I’ve already had the opportunity to work with a company that had a requirement and ended up proposing a different solution to the one initially envisaged. After a few exchanges, it turned out that another, less costly process was possible, and that’s what we’re looking for at Merkur: to always offer our customers the best solution, at the lowest cost and with the most appropriate support (outsourcing, consulting, etc.). Above all, we want to build a relationship based on trust.
Secondly, I would say that our added value is the synergy of expertise we offer our customers. At Merkur, we have a variety of departments: automation, robotics, digital simulation, procurement, industrial engineering, etc., which enables us to offer a real consortium of several departments working hand in hand and joining forces to make our customer perform. We know the skills and profiles of each of our collaborators, which is why we are able to call on them at the right time in the right place!
To conclude this interview, could you remind us of the 4 reasons to call on your team?
AL: Yes, I’ll try. So, I’d say:
- The synergy of expertise present at Merkur, we offer you a real consortium of several departments.
- The multidisciplinary experience of Merkur’s designers.
- The proximity we maintain with our customers and the bond of trust and listening!
- My team’s passion for mechanical engineering!
Thank you, André, for your time today!
If you’re interested in undertaking a tooling design project, please contact us.
To find out more about André’s career, visit our HR blog!
