The company was set up in Zola Predosa, in Bologna, in the 1950s and has become a market leader in the production of mechanical components obtained from the processing of pipes, the moulding of sheet metal and CNC turning. It works for multinational and leading sector businesses and embodies an extraordinary story: never give up. For FARE INSIEME, Giampaolo Colletti interviews Andrea Anderlini, owner of the company
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
An old Chinese proverb says that “a sly rabbit will have three openings to its den” which means that there is always a choice to be taken that can make a difference. After all, the story we are about to tell you reveals all this and more, a reasoning we could sum up as “never give up”. But, in order to do so, a clear vision is needed in addition to the unbridled passion that makes things happen. Just think that the story we are about to tell you is that of a company that, over the years, has managed to become the leading European producer of carburettor linkages. Just to give you an idea, half of the cars that used to circulate in the early 1990s featured their components. But let’s explain what a linkage is - it is generally a system of levers that can be applied to different mechanics. It can refer to the system that transmits movement and force, such as in the case of the gear linkage connecting the gear stick to the transmission to enable a precise and fluid change of gears. Easier done than said. At least in the case of Anderlini. Then the laws changed, and internal combustion engines became no longer compliant with regulations. The company needed to reinvent itself fast. This story also illustrates this lesson made up of ingenious intuitions, hectic and desperate studying, extreme know-how and even some sheer luck.
Company profile. Let’s start from where before moving on to who and what. We find ourselves in Zola Predosa, a town of twenty thousand inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Bologna. It was here that Anderlini moved to in 1975 from the original workshop in Borgo Panigale. It started out as a mechanical machine tool company set up by the founder Ugo Anderlini. A start-upper, as we would have called him today. Over the years, the company grew to specialize in the moulding of sheet metal, automatic turning and assembly, becoming a market leader in the manufacture of metal parts for the automotive, motorcycle and tubular motor sectors. Mechanical cutting and machining of metal pipes and varnishing using a specific system. But let us remain in those postwar period years. It was a time of uncertainty and a time of passion. Ugo Anderlini was a skilled worker at Ducati meccanica, which made moulds to process sheet metal. After the war, he decided to set up a craft business and came into contact with the Bologna company that produced carburettors. Hence the ingenious idea: to continue to make moulds that then could also be used to make sheet metal moulded parts. I was a boy in the early 1960s and I remember the enthusiasm and self-sacrifice that my parents put into their work. The most rewarding moment? Managing to overcome the deep crisis that affected the company in the late 1990s, when carburettors were replaced by electronic injection. “It was at that time that we encountered the life raft that ferried us from the old to the new world. A company that made tubular motors,” recalls Andrea Anderlini, owner of the company who was born in 1957 with training a mechanical industrial expert and a degree in Economics and Commerce. A lexical dichotomy from an educational point of view, we could say. But this dual soul made everything possible. Today, the company boasts 22 employees who work in the headquarters covering almost 4,000 sq m and which exports 35% of its products abroad to France, Poland, Tunisia, China and India. The turnover is approximately €4 million with a forecast of €5 million for 2026. “Our work would have completely disappeared. We only had one client at the time and all the laws of market economy say: if the product dies, so does the market and the company that makes it. But it was not an immediate death so much as an announced death, which enabled us to reinvent ourselves. We managed to evolve. Today we deal with mechanical supplies, i.e. highly complex products such as the tubes for tubular motors,” says Anderlini. What's in store for the future? “We will continue to develop our DNA as specialists in a product with a growth path that enables us to tackle future challenges also with new travel companions,” concludes Anderlini. We have said it in the past, and we would like to repeat it now: Never give up. This is the lesson we learn from excellent organisations.
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