At the presence of the international corporate management and, invariably, of city authorities, the global giant of electronic and electromechanical equipment Ametek has inaugurated a new pole that, from Milan outskirts, aims at the core of the fourth industrial revolution.
by Roberto Carminati
What Ametek has accomplished in the Lombard factories at Ripalta Cremasca (Cremona) and Robecco sul Naviglio (Milan) has been “a fascinating travel that lasted as many as thirty years”. Moreover: “our history on the territory is a vicissitude of constant growth supported by the contribution of our precious human resources and, from the financial point of view, it is a successful course”. These concepts and words were used by the Vice President of the US multinational Matthew C. French to bid symbolically farewell to the two pre-existing manufacturing sites and to start now a new chapter where technological innovation and services are the protagonists.
At the end of last year, the giant of electronic and electromechanical equipment, which achieves a yearly sales volume of about four billion dollars, inaugurated in fact new headquarters at Peschiera Borromeo, in the outskirts of Milan. The company presented it as an event in great style, attended by local authorities and naturally by its customers and suppliers.
An excellence centre that favours synergies
As the Managing Director of Ametek Italia Srl – MAE Uwe Lorenz opportunely highlighted, “a sound tradition is the ideal foundation on which building the future”. The future of the brand, which relies on 150 manufacturing sites in the world employing 17,000 workers overall, precisely starts from here, from a plant that, in the intentions of the corporate management, is expected to stand out as a «global excellence centre»; in other words, to ranks as “a real reference point of international relevance where to make further progresses, working side by side”. The headquarters at Peschiera Borromeo take up an overall area of 7,500 square metres and host almost 230 employees whose number is going to rise again, in the management’s intentions. It holds a strategic position – it is located half way between the previous locations at Ripalta Cremasca and Robecco sul Naviglio – and its propensity is also, or even mainly, strategic. “The aggregation of activities and the unification of processes will favour the creation of new synergies to full benefit of the development of our business units”, Uwe Lorenz told concerning this. He was echoed by the Managing Director of Ametek Srl Stefano Milani, in whose opinion, with the initiative accomplished in December 2018, “the competitive capacity of Ametek” in the segment of «precision instruments for the Italian market” will receive “new boost”, thus strengthening the ranking of a supplier that, by full title, thinks of “always having been in the forefront of the innovation and development of new products”.
Expansion strategy
Until now, the Group’s expansion strategy has been strongly driven by takeovers and such will of growing by external lines is well witnessed by the big number of brands grouped by each of its business units. Everything started in this way, in our Country as well, with the takeover of a local company about thirty years ago, in 1990.
As important are the other three bearing pillars of Ametek’s activity in Italy and in the world, i.e. operation excellence, product innovations and the international growth. “We own – further pointed out Stefano Milani – “dozens of business units worldwide and some refer to highly renowned brands operating on the domestic territory, too. In our new factory at Peschiera Borromeo we can welcome customers and potential buyers in a fully renovated environment that houses laboratories and showrooms, too. Being closer to customers results in higher efficacy, in line with an ambitious growth plan”. Highlighting development potentialities is not fortuitous and also the municipal councillor of Peschiera Borromeo Franca Costa affirmed “to be impressed by such a broad project of integration and economic development on the territory”, consistently with the local policy welcoming entrepreneurial initiatives. Moreover, coherently with the staff management policy that characterizes the manufacturer and starts from the idea that the quality of products also depends on the specialization and education opportunities the company can assure to workers.
The fourth industrial revolution, according to Ametek
Mauro Garantola, Marketing and Sales Manager of Ametek Italia Srl – MAE explained in an interview how all this can turn into an Industry 4.0-oriented strategy: “Digitalization, which represents one of the key elements in the shifting to the fourth industrial revolution is a growing trend in our customers’ project specifications; it is clear that, in this innovative transition, we are fully involved in the research and development of solutions for our partners”.
The meaning of the operation that was accomplished in the record time of six months only, as the multinational underIined in its official releases, is also another: “this site”, added Garantola, “is aimed at grouping functions that were previously distributed in different sites and its purpose is essentially logistic and organizational. It witnesses to what extent we believe in the fulfilment of new synergies». And of how strongly Ametek, we daresay, believes in its own growth potentialities: “This is our goal”, Garantola finally states, “concerning both human resources and engineering and sales. Regarding the future, we envisage excellent opportunities for a further successful consolidation, especially in the ambits of industrial automation and of medical technologies”.