TDV Industries

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an action but a habit.” This quotation from Aristotle perfectly reflects our way of working at TDV Industries, which doesn’t stop us from continuously striving to further improve.

TDV Industries traces its roots back to the 19th century. In 1866 the Coisne and Lambert families formed a partnership and set up a textile factory in Armentières in northern France. This was a revolutionary concept for that era, since at that the time textile workers used to operate weaving looms at home under the "putting out" system: companies provided the materials and collected the finished products from the weavers' homes so that these could be processed and sold. Business soon expanded rapidly, in particular thanks to rubber manufacturers such as Michelin, Hutchinson and Goodrich who used fabric in the production of tires. It was during this period that a small mill was purchased in Saint Quentin in the region situated between Picardy and Thiérache. Unfortunately this region suffered some of the heaviest fighting in World War I, with consequent disruption of industry and trade.

In 1938, the rumblings of war raised concern once again, and the partners decided to seek out a location deeper in the French heartland. They found what they were looking for in the town of Laval in the Loire region. The principal business gradually became established here and the machines were shifted from the Saint Quentin unit to Laval. The company was named "Textile Du Vermandois" as a tribute to the original mill. In the 1950s the textile business flourished and TDV took a daring step by making a significant investment and managing the changeover to a fully integrated weaving mill within the time span of only two years. The weaving process was thus supplemented upstream by a spinning facility in addition to downstream dyeing and finishing. The mill became fully autonomous, able to cover the entire fabric production process from the raw materials (cotton and polyester) to the textile, ready to be transformed into a finished product. This integration still represents a winning position for TDV Industries which continuously develops its customer-based, committed and innovative industrial strategy. The 1980s were marked by a number of drastic decisions for TDV Industries. The firm was turned around completely once more as a result of nine years of uninterrupted investments enabling it to face the challenges of globalization. One of these decisions was to discontinue the dressmaking activities and focus on fabrics for workwear, both civilian and military.

TDV Industries installed the first Picanol machines during this period and since then it has never ceased to invest in the latest Picanol airjets. This started with the OMNI followed by the OMNIplus, the OMNIplus 800 and most recently the OMNIplus Summum. The company is currently managed by the 5th generation of the Coisne and Lambert families through the intermediary of Christophe Lambert. The board of directors of TDV S.A. consists of five Coisne and Lambert representatives. TDV Industries has invested at least 5% of its turnover every year for the past 25 years. On the collaboration with Picanol Mr. Lambert is clear: "This is not just any customer-supplier relation, but a win-win situation where both parties think ahead how to tackle changing market situations in the spirit of 'Let’s grow together.'"

Mr. Christophe Lambert: “We greatly appreciate this long-term relationship with Picanol. One that is based on trust and the willingness to listen; based on technology, innovation and the feeling that for Picanol this partnership is not neutral but very important. We feel that we have a win-win relationship and I have to say that we are rather pleased with this. And now we have to ask, what will the future bring? Because, as in all long-term relationships, we have to keep coming up with something new. We expect Picanol to help us build our strategic vision of textile excellence. We expect Picanol to help us push back the limits of our abilities and know-how, so we can be ready for the long term, because TDV thinks long-term. This means Picanol should be constantly ready with innovations, improvements and new tools beyond the mere weaving machine. In this way we can produce textile without any excess weight in the organization. This is how we have operated for some time now, which is necessary to adapt in today's modern, digital world. The textile business is an old one, but it is run in a modern way with suppliers who keep up with the latest developments, and in this respect we are very satisfied with Picanol.”