/ MOLDS AND DIES Matrinox has been devoted to die making since its beginning in 1986 and currently has 11 employees TECHNOLOGY, SERIOUS WORK AND COMMON SENSE, MATRINOX INGREDIENTS THAT ALLOW IT TO CONTINUE TO THRIVE managed by Enric Gross. Essentially devoted to the automotive sector - its strength, its main customers are metal pressworkers, subcontractors to car manufacturers. A sector that continues to flourish, in spite of a drop in car sales, due to the internationalisation of pressworkers that have been able to find new opportunities outside Spain. Equipped with a technologically advanced range of machinery, its workshop includes lathes, machining centres, wire electro-erosion machines with 5 machining axes and an hydraulic press for checks: "Although the dies are always checked at the pressworkers, at Matrinox we make the initial checks to determine if any modifications are necessary". ESTHER GÜELL Matrinox is Enric Gross's project who, at the age of 77, continues to be fully involved. When he took charge of the company in 1986, he little imagined that the daily struggle involved in making dies for a sector as demanding as the automotive would become his life and passion. "It is my life and I love it because each project is different and means a new challenge". A very special work and team management philosophy that he knows how to convey. 48 / This anonymous saying could be perfectly well applied to the Matrinox work philosophy. Working from the pressworker drawings, producing the dies should be an easy task, but it is not always so. "On many occasions we are asked to do the almost impossible, we attempt to get as close as possible to it and respond to the requests of the engineers that have produced the drawings. The parts devised by the designers sometimes involve significant challenges for the pressworkers and, consequently, for us who manufacture the dies with which these parts are made", Mr. Gross explained. "Nowadays, very small tolerances are demanded and meeting them is our daily struggle, although certainly innovation in machinery has helped us to solve particular difficulties", he added. Matrinox has been working mainly for Ford and Nissan subcontractor companies for many years. How do you keep a family company alive in a world of sharks? Probably the The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer A "family" company in a global market