Specialized since the foundation, in 1955, in the production of laminations for motors and transformers, Trancerie Emiliane, owned by Felisa family, are unavoidably interested in the e-mobility theme.

At the beginning, it was the sound, and precisely the unmistakable one by Beatles. On tour in Italy in the early Sixties, the four from Liverpool clearly needed all possible stage equipment, starting with amplifiers. They were supplied by Davoli’s made in Italy, whose resonance boxes were echoed by the transformers by a small Parma company. We are speaking of Trancerie Emiliane that few years before had stemmed from the entrepreneurship of Pietro Felisa, founder driven by ingeniousness and the will of leaving war miseries behind. Since then, Felisa workshop has developed up to gaining the sizes and the renown as big international manufacturer of laminations for transformers and electric motors, entering the world of induced activities of leader global brands in automotive and not only. Today it relies on a subsidiary in Slovak territory and 350-400 workers in all, with a turnover of 150 millions. The time seems propitious for further great strides, due to the clamour aroused by the race to e-mobility.

The managing director Franco Felisa strongly believes that the electrification of light transports, or at least their strong hybridization, represents the (sustainable) future of mobility and perhaps of even human kind, even if he is aware that the road to be travelled is still long and will reserve new surprises.
«E-cars and hybrid», he told Electric Motor Engineering, «are the vehicles of the future but I do not think that their definitive success, that is to say the complete replacement of thermal engines with electric motors, can be implemented in the short term.
Let us just consider the infrastructural deficiencies from which we suffer, for instance, in terms of energy production and distribution capacity.

The game and the candle

In spite of that, the investments by big brands and by some representatives of their induced activities do not seem to leave any doubt: they are constantly growing.
The numbers at stake are attractive even if, currently, the planned output is in most cases equal to less than one tenth of means of transport produced in the world in one year.
While vendors generally compete on the distance covered and the mileage of their cars, their supply chain, to which also Parma brand refers, copes with fully different matters, like the development of the production of new components that imply the implementation of equipment to be used in brand-new forefront manufacturing lines.
«Another fundamental step for the success of the electric mobility», commented Franco Felisa, «is represented by the development of batteries, and the issue is not exclusively of commercial or technological character.
The automotive industry is working hard to establish long-term agreements with the owners of lithium mines to be sure it will be supplied with the precious mineral.

A shock of realism

In the opinion of Franco Felisa, batteries must be recharged in the lapse of few minutes and the recharge must be sufficient for hundreds of kilometres to allow zero-impact four-wheels to keep their promises and to meet market requirements.

Nowadays, unfortunately this technology is not available, yet, and, in fact, it needs too much time for a complete recharge, with which it is not possible to travel long distances, yet, and anyway at low average speed.
To succeed in the aim of giving more autonomy and higher average speed to vehicles, manufacturers must strive to produce less energy-eating electric motors.
One of the feasible ways is certainly the reduction of sheet metal thicknesses.
Instead of the common 0.5 mm thickness used for standard electric motors, already today automotive uses thicknesses from 0.35mm to 0.27mm, but some automotive companies report and produce prototypes with sheet metal thickness of 0.19 mm.
This requirement urges the entire chain to an epochal change in the implementation, for instance, of the necessary steels, as well as of apt equipment and machines for blanking the laminations for the production of electric motors.

In my opinion, this is the approximate situation we are likely to face for the whole current year.
From 2020 to 2021, the numbers of electric vehicles introduced by companies into their ranges will be much broader.
Certainly, we cannot get off the running train of the e-mobility and Trancerie Emiliane are ready for racing and for satisfying its customers’ demands and needs.

Zero tolerance

In comparison with past years, before the 2008-crisis, certainly the whole market scenario has radically changed, for instance with delivery terms dropped from some months in the past to the present few weeks, as well as quality, irredeemably shifted to zero PPM. Despite criticalities, Felisa irremissibly considers automotive as the core of his company’s next initiatives and he is certain the future coincides with the diffusion of the e-car.

4.0 blanking

«We have clear ideas about what we would like to do», he anticipated, «but in a scenario of such a difficult interpretation caution is mandatory.

We imagine a robotic “next” factory, with electric trains that will handle goods in absolute autonomy, and fully automated warehouses, too, without anyway ever forgetting the human factor that is, and must remain, the focus of each of our thoughts or actions. On the other hand, employees’ competences and their way of working are expected to live an epochal change. Besides machines, workers are and will be called to increasingly use forefront consoles of collection and transfer of data concerning single job orders and all that can be used to fulfil them.

AIDA MSP

The AIDA MSP allows producing high precision and high-efficiency motors such as EV motors, HEV motors and energy-efficient home appliances motors. AIDA MSP presses are characterized by a remarkable dynamic precision due to both the compact design and the multiple suspension points architecture in line, to the native AIM function (Adjust In Motion) and to the balance reached between the high rigidity and the large surface of bed area. AIDA MSP presses guarantee unsurpassed accuracy and the longest die life thanks to the lowest deflection characteristics. Moreover, all areas that transmit the press the forming loads, such as the connecting rod bearings and the crankshaft bearings, are made from special metals selected to avoid heat deformations. Ideal for production of parts featuring thicknesses under 0.2 mm Multiple suspension points Oil temperature control unit Caliper type clutch and brake Highly rigid frame Highly rigid guidepost Adjust In Motion function (AIM)

We imagine the next job as absolutely less heavy from the physical point of view but much more committing in intellectual terms.
To compete globally, we must create further flexibility and this is accomplished through studies and investments in people and machines.
Trancerie Emiliane’s programme includes the implementation of a central unit or control tower that tracks in integrated way the information about activities in course and productions, the state of the art of each machining, which can be monitored step by step from remote.
Concerning this, Trancerie Emiliane has recently bought new AIDA presses that will be interconnected with the company, actively participating in the industry 4.0 project.

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”.