Today we show you a close interview with Somontano Social, a special employment center essential in the rural and social areas of the Somontano Region.

1. For how long have they been working in Somontano region? and with Novapet?

Somontano Social began its activities in 1998 and began to collaborate with Novapet in the year 1996. The manager at that time, Javier Sazatornil and now Managing Director, together with the County (“Comarca”) of Somontano and the Rey Ardid Foundation began this project, creating a Masonry workshop with personnel with disabilities, subsequently the rest of the areas were added. Currently, the Rey Ardid Foundation owns 60% and the County of Somontano owns 40 %.

2. Which is the company philosophy?

The mission of Somontano Social SL is to contribute, in the area of the county of Somontano and also at the provincial level, to labour and social inclusion of people with physical, mental and/or sensorial disabilities, helping to make effective the principle of equality of opportunity and non-discrimination.

They strive to carry out this mission through the following objectives:

• To expand and diversify their range of activities, in order to offer very diverse tasks, thus achieving the insertion of the widest range possible of personal and professional profiles.  
• To generate new innovative activities with technological support. 
• To seek the widest market possible for their products and services, including the international market. 
• To maintain a business structure that is sustainable and viable in economic terms, reinvesting all profits and resources obtained in the people and the future sustainability of the company. 
• To promote the training of their current and potential workers. 
• To collaborate with other social organizations whose objectives are similar.
• To collaborate and support the small-town Halls of the County of Somontano and of the province of Huesca.

3. What are the values that predominate in Somontano Social to carry out its objectives? 

• Objectivity and impartiality.
• Interest in and respect for people, striving to support situations of greater vulnerability.
• The nobility of the workers to the company and vice versa.
• Equality between men and women.
• Collaboration between the different work centres and people of our company.
• Collaboration of our company with other public or private companies or entities, whose interests are also people.
• Present and future sustainability of the company through good management, good organization, a high degree of commitment of the workers and constant renewal of the activities carried out.

4. How many employees has Somontano Social working for Novapet?

At Somontano Social there are currently around 190 workers; specifically, for Novapet, there are between 36 and 42 workers employed, the number of persons assigned each week being variable depending on the volume of work, which, frequently, is variable.

5. What are the main areas to which Somontano Social offers employment opportunities?

We can summarize the main areas in two large blocks: services to public entities, such as City Halls and other institutions and private, mainly companies, and its own services. 

5.1. Services to public companies and entities: 

• Brigades of maintenance in public and private spaces: Gardening and masonry.
• Logistics and storage: Stockage for Big Bags of Novapet.
• Industrial handling of various products: Cleaning of cages and boxes (Novapet), recovery of reels for technical fibre (Brilen), assembly and repair of plugs, assembly of joysticks, etc.
• Administrative and organizational services for different bodies: Barbastro Town Hall, County of Somontano, Interpretation Centres, sports events of the county, etc.
• Recording and digitalization of data.
• Website development.

5.2. Own services:

• Telephone attention – call centre.
• Services of Printing, enveloping and distribution of correspondence 
• Package distribution.
• Manufacture and sale of 3D printers.
• Manufacture of Audio handicraft.
• Manufacture and commercialization of moulding.
• Somontano Masonry.
• Operation of photovoltaic plant.
• Management of 6 service stations (petrol stations).

6. Which are the main tasks performed for Novapet?

This mainly involves the services of logistics and storage of the Big Bags that contain PET to act as an intermediate warehouse between production and shipping to customers. We call this Pellet or PET Logistics.  

The main tasks consist of receiving, storage and unloading of the PET, which arrives inside what are called Big Bags, which are sacks of large size that can contain from 1000 to 1200 kgs of pellets.

The storage of the PET takes place when there is a surplus of product in the warehouses of Novapet and certain orders already prepared are sent to the warehouses of Somontano Social with the documentation prepared, ready to be sent to customers according to the agreed dates.

And on the other hand, they perform a very important and necessary task of industrial handling: the control, the receipt, the cleaning, the repair and the assembly of the cages and box for Novapet, transporting preforms that a customer has bought and that, to minimize environmental impact, once each order is received, the customer returns to  Somontano Social (intermediary between customer and Novapet) the cage or box,  which can contain some dirt or be damaged.  At Somontano Social, they are carefully cleaned, one by one, by the workers and those that may be damaged are repaired in a specific welding workshop. 

7. Motivation of the employees: importance of their tasks for the global work of a large company.

At Somontano Social there is an employment counsellor who is a Labour Officer and selects each worker according to their profile and capacity for performance of the task that best adapts to his/her qualities and/or needs.  

All workers who perform handling tasks work in teams of two, and if there are new personnel, one of the two can teach the new one; thus, the “work partners” rotate. 

8. How are the installations they have for develop their work?

At the Industrial Park Valle del Cinca de Barbastro, they have large production facilities 4,500 m square metres in size.

In addition, there is a storage facility of almost 1600 square metres (1590 to be exact).

Additionally, expansion is planned to another mixed facility of 1000 square metres, which will serve both for production and for storage. 

Likewise, in the centre of the city of Barbastro, we find the central offices, as well as a specialized employment centre for persons with more specific disabilities and/or needs. 

9. Ethics code in the organization.

Throughout the organization, being a not-for-profit entity, the Code of Ethics of the Rey Ardid Group is complied with, which we leave you as follows: 

http://somontanosocial.com/images/Somontano-Social/empresa/codigoetico.pdf

10. Personnel in charge of the organization.

Como responsables de la organización, en lo referente a los trabajos que se realizan para Novapet, nos encontramos a dos personas clave.

Firstly, there is Sergio Fredes as coordinator of the areas of industrial handling, logistics and Service Brigade.  He coordinates the more specific tasks of Novapet, principally in the area of industrial handling, requiring professionalization of the tasks. He is located in the offices of Somontano Social in Barbastro. He carries out an admirable job of providing employment opportunities to the most disadvantaged sectors within our County of Somontano and his activity is more focused on the management of personnel of these areas and the coordination of the different companies collaborating in these areas.  

Secondly, there is Miguel Sierra, who is responsible for the logistics and storage of the different Novapet products. He organizes the weekly work schedule and the rotation of the personnel in each task.  Moreover, he performs tasks as a trainer and organizer of the different tasks within the logistics facility that is located at the Industrial Park Valle del Cinca. He carries out personalized individual work with each of the employees, taking into account the importance of a timely reinsertion of the persons who have had a second opportunity thanks to their intervention in the working world, and indeed, in life.

11. Novapet and Somontano Social, a success story.

At Somontano Social all the deliveries of cages that the customers of Novapet return empty are managed; they are received through their individual coding, by reading with PDA and subsequently, they are stored.  They are inspected, they are cleaned and repaired if they come damaged, and left ready to be returned to the Novapet plant in order to be used again. During the year 2019 approximately 72,800 cages have been received, cleaned and repaired, the equivalent of about 310 trucks. Without a doubt, exceptional figures.

The Boxes that arrive empty at its warehouses are also received for subsequent inspection, cleaning and repair, likewise, if they arrive damaged. For this type of packaging, the requirement in both cleaning and in inspection and subsequent storage is very high, due to the very high standards of hygiene that the customer requires from Novapet. In the current year, thus far approximately 16,700 Boxes have been received, inspected, cleaned and repaired, the equivalent to about 128 trucks.

Certainly, such highly personalized treatment given by Somontano Social to these reusable packages for Novapet is without a doubt, a model of highly optimized management with regard to recovery of packaging, providing Novapet with incomparable service with a high degree of reliability; therefore, it is an absolute success story.