Getting there before others with courage, awareness, determination, knowledge. Towards the end of the 1970s, Bologna saw the birth of a company that focused on integrated services from the very beginning. Today, NIER has 215 professionals and operates in many markets with more than 500 active clients. The turnover hovers around €18 million. Per FARE INSIEME Giampaolo Colletti interviews Maria Teresa Vestrucci, Managing Director of NIER Ingegneria
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
They set out on paths still little known. They embark on new and unexplored paths. Somehow, they are ahead of their time. These are the pioneers, that is, women and men - but also companies ignited by those women and men - who took the field to make a difference. The story we are about to tell is about them and is, therefore, closely related to the concept of pioneer. Because NIER- a company engaged in providing consulting services, implementation of occupational safety plans, environmental analysis and risk assessment, and much more - has always been this way. Pioneer.
The history. Its history began in 1977 in Bologna. From the very beginning, the choice was for a path of a cooperative company focused on two major themes: energy and nuclear safety. Later, in the 1980s, it shifted to environmental issues and major risks, with the creation of a more solid structure with significant computing resources. A foretaste of those contemporary challenges that all companies are called upon to take part in today. “At the time, some major emerging problems - the energy crisis, the safety of complex systems such as nuclear reactors, and shortly thereafter the environment - could be addressed in innovative ways thanks to the technological revolution of the time. Namely, thanks to the then out-of-reach computational systems that became available allowing data, such as weather and Italy's construction sites, to be matched with models of heat transfer from the walls of a building and energy production by a plant," says Maria Teresa Vestrucci, managing director of NIER Ingegneria. A way to do targeted analysis. Environmental issues, which emerged in the 1980s, expanded the need for system analysis with data retrieval and computerization, mathematical models and processing that enabled innovative knowledge, evaluation and decision-making. Energy, industrial risks and the environment are the hallmarks of NIER's early period. "By the way, what has been developed today as a result of the digital revolution - i.e., Internet of Things, Virtual Prototyping, and dynamic analytics - is the result of sowing that took place at that time. Later, during the 1990s, the topic of risk and the systemic approach to emerging problems became more and more widespread under the impetus of European directives, regulations and international standards, affecting more and more industries and giving us the opportunity to engage in additional application areas," Vestrucci points out. Then, in 2002, we chose to become a public limited company. "We have grown by seizing some of the opportunities in the market over the past decades, aiming to be a consulting firm offering high quality services and focusing heavily on integrated consulting. Starting from a specific need with the client, we often paved the way for broader and more structured activities, which included not just a single aspect but the client's business at a broader level. Becoming a limited company has allowed us to have a more robust structure and also to interface with large clients in various markets," Vestrucci says. Here is the courage to be a pioneer once again. Today, the company has 215 professionals and operates in many markets with more than 500 active clients. The turnover hovers around €18 million, with a 10-15 percent growth in recent years and a doubling of revenue and people in the last five years.
The ESG factor. The company works in all areas of engineering consulting, and there are four areas of business: sustainability, occupational safety, systems engineering, and software engineering. There is a strong technical specialization at the core. Suffice it to say that nearly 20 percent of the people of our team have PhDs. "We want to offer a high level specialist service. Our technical consulting contributes to the redefinition of interconnection through innovation, methodologies and technologies, standing alongside clients and with a view to the smart society," Vestrucci points out. Services range from occupational safety to consulting on hazardous substances, from energy analysis and certification to software testing, from machine reliability studies to predictive maintenance, from software design and validation to the design of a nuclear fusion reactor cooling system. Clients include public administrations and individuals in every sector: automotive, construction and infrastructure, rail, large retail, oil & gas, logistics and transportation, and manufacturing. We talk about integrated sustainability and system engineering. "We are a company focused on integrated services; we want to be an all-round partner to our clients. After all, in an interconnected world, the clients’ individual problem is more or less directly connected to others in their life and business. As a custom, we cast our gaze beyond the present. To understand the world to come," Vestrucci concludes. The historic payoff also reminds us of this: the honor of being useful. This is the only way to truly look to the future.
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