In 1963 a company was founded in Nonantola, near Modena, that over the years has become a beacon of quality, research and innovation. Today, Idraulica Albano Sighinolfi has 70 employees and a 9.000 square metre industrial production plant equipped with state-of-the-art machinery. The global turnover is just over Euro 17 million with a growth of 7.5% over last year. Business and research. For FARE INSIEME, Giampaolo Colletti interviews Donatella Sighinolfi, CEO of Idraulica Sighinolfi
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
Think about
it. Of every unforgettable event in our lives, we remember the details. Not
just the year, but also the date and, often, even the time. This applies not
only in our own life, but also in the lives of companies which are, after all,
organisations characterised by brilliant ideas that create a system and become
plural. We were talking about dates. Keep this one in mind. 28 October 1963.
This is the date on which an Emilian craft business, born from the desire to
make a difference, was registered. More. From the idea of an entrepreneur who
wanted to make a mark for himself, for his family, for the community. The
Sighinolfi company was born on that day and in that year. We are in Nonantola,
a medieval village with a population of sixteen thousand in the province of
Modena. A land of culture, age-old traditions, nature to explore, dishes to
savour, but also a future to write by those businesses that create employment
and value.
Company profile. Here, a 23-year-old
man with a primary school certificate, after working for a historic company
that made excavators, decided to take the plunge, setting up on his own company
and starting to produce cylinders. Albano Sighinolfi put everything he had on
the line. And time proved him right. To succeed in his venture, he started in a
garage provided by his uncle in the basement of his house and, with a bank
loan, he bought his first machines. Albano began to supply cylinders to the
company he had worked for. And one thing led to another. Over time, he moved
into the entire truck crane market. Albano also helped to create what is called
the hydrovalley where there is the highest concentration of companies in this
field of mechanics in Europe. “Dad was a genius and Mum worked with him in the
business. Then they hired the first employees,” says Donatella Sighinolfi, CEO
of the company now in its second generation and which she manages along with
her brother. Everything still revolves around Nonantola, but the spaces have
changed. It moved from the garage of the early days to a five hundred square
metre shed, then to a second shed and then to two more. Today, Idraulica Albano
Sighinolfi has 70 employees and a 9.000 square metre industrial production
plant equipped with state-of-the-art machinery. The global turnover is just
over Euro 17 million recording a growth of 7.5%. The foreign market accounts
for 41% of the turnover: Germany, France, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden
and Vietnam. But it is of paramount importance not to rest on one’s laurels. We
produce and we carry out research. 5% of the turnover is invested in R&D.
And the result is the first patent for the SmartCylinder, a cylinder for the
green economy.
The winning element. Everything revolves around the cylinder, which is the heart of many
machines: it is used to lift, but also to move weights or loads. Cylinders are
manufactured for various port applications: from forklifts that move containers
to cranes that unload ships and hold buckets. And presses for waste recycling,
industrial presses, filter presses for sludge, cylinders for dam sluice gates,
truck cranes and, more recently, also for earthquake-proof systems that are in
great demand today. “Cylinders are strategic for all those applications in
which heavy loads have to be lifted or moved: the cylinder allows safe,
controlled handling without requiring the physical effort of operators. Of
course, the cylinder is one of the main components of a machine; on its own it
does nothing but is the element that moves the load. So, if correctly designed,
the cylinder is a safe, reliable and useful tool,” says Sighinolfi. There is
the product, but that is not all. Because there is one element that is crucial
for this local Emilian gem. Trust. “My father always told us that he started
from the garage, but that he never lost the trust of his customers. He always
told us that without trust you can’t build anything. Even through difficult
times, our customers have always supported us, as did our suppliers,”
Sighinolfi notes. The most difficult moment? 2009 and a global crisis that had
never been seen before. “To survive that moment, we changed our production
method, differentiated our customers, learnt many things, trained and, above
all, formed a team,” says Sighinolfi. So last year the company celebrated its
60th anniversary. What about the future? It is green. “We have to play our part
to reduce our carbon footprint and offer a product that allows our customers
improved performance, cost containment and operator safety”.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
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