Combining mechanics and
innovation to provide an integrated consultancy service. The company was
established in 2006 in Calderara di Reno, at the entrance of that Motor Valley
that is a feather in the cap of Emilia. The project was thought up by Fabio di
Martino together with his partner and technician Gianni Fabbretti. For FARE
INSIEME, Giampaolo Colletti interviews Fabio Di Martino, CEO of Mechinno
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
Why
do we find it necessary to go abroad to develop and produce innovation? That is such a
banal question as it is difficult to address. Especially if we think about
twenty years back to a period characterised by a strong push towards
delocalisation in foreign countries. Yet, Fabio Di Martino, a Sicilian
mechanical engineer who soon moved to Emilia after talking to many businesses
also on an international level and especially India, asked himself this
question in 2006. Over the years, Di Martino worked abroad with engineering
services, operating on behalf of Italian clients who were thinking about moving
production abroad, even the engineering part, i.e. the most valuable part. Why do we find it necessary to go abroad to
develop and produce innovation? In the early 2000s, Di Martino kept
wondering this, so much so that it determined his future entrepreneurial path
which he put into practice in a controversial manner. "We
have always had excellent engineers in Italy, maybe without being too aware of
it. However, at the time, people talked about offshoring because they thought
it would cost less. But, when talking about human capital, saving money is
never a wise choice", reports Di Martino.
The
story of an intuition. This is how Mechinno was born. Nomen omen, according to the famous Latin phrase. Because, to
understand the sense of this Emilian excellence of hi-tech engineering, we can
start from that crisis that turns into an actual manifesto of values. Mechinno
combines Mechanics and Innovation. Ever since 2006, the company has had an
ambitious objective: to provide companies with the engineering support
necessary to guarantee a high skill level, avoiding the undermining of the
quality gap and enabling the development of innovative products without having
to rely on remote and declassifying alternatives. The company becomes an
accelerator of innovation, a coach designing new pages of the future. We find
ourselves in Calderara di Reno, a town of fifteen thousand inhabitants in the
Bologna metropolitan area at the gates of the area defined as the Motor Valley.
130 professionals work at providing answers to manufacturing enterprises by
offering high-level, flexible and customisable industrial service: from
concept, design and planning to prototyping and production. The objective is to
provide support that links human skill and evolved technologies. People and
machines that can compete. The company registers a turnover €8.6 million, with
a year-on-year increase of +7%. Think, think again, do. There are three
facilities, and the main one in Calderara di Reno boasts a technical office
covering over 1,000 sqm.
Listening to clients. Everything started
off from Fabio Di Martino, as we mentioned. He was born in 1968, holds a degree
in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florence and has always
focused on listening to companies and the market. “By analysing the management
processes related to remote engineering activities, I realized that Italian
businesses boasting high-quality and high product performances risked
compromising themselves due to competition that focused on quantity rather than
quality. The remote management of product innovation thus risked narrowing that
gap that set them apart from products of a lower quality,” recalled Di Martino,
who began as a starter upper in the automotive sector, the feather in the cap
of innovation in the Modena district. “We can guarantee a high-quality service
also in case of hectic and tight schedules. We offer young engineers the chance
to work in multiple sectors, focusing on hybrid skills and a comprehensive
vision and supplying manufacturing enterprises with high-level, flexible and
customisable industrial services. You need to be able to grasp market
evolutions, always focusing on people”, concludes Di Martino. Qualified
engineering of course, but what counts is the capability of taking risks. And
actually listening to a labour market that proceeds at great speed.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
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