An identikit of the company from Emilia a
leader in the automatic machine sector and among the four most important on a
global level. «This
type of work opens up new horizons. There is something different to do and to
learn every day». For FARE INSIEME, Giampaolo Colletti
interviewed Maurizio Marchesini, CEO of Marchesini Group
di Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
Let time run its course. Without haste, yet
with perseverance. Or, as it is called today, resilience, a word taken from the
metal working industry. Because masterpieces are made up of details and
challenges are tackled one step at a time, brick after brick. There we have it,
if there is a factor that makes the difference when telling the story of the
Marchesini Group - a global leader in the automatic machine sector, a success
story well rooted in Emilia yet capable of conquering markets, interest and turnover
- it is precisely time. “The time factor is essential, because a success story
is built step by step. Knowledge that gradually stratifies. I am a lover of
start-ups, but time is important, while everything is different now,”
explains Maurizio Marchesini,
president of the Marchesini Group, a giant in the automatic machine industry
among the four global leaders in the packaging sector. We find ourselves in
Pianoro, a town of almost twenty thousand inhabitants in the Bologna
metropolitan area surrounded by the greenery of the Gessi park that crosses the
Apennines and which used to be a artery between Bologna and Florence. It was
Massimo Marchesini who came up with the idea when he decided to built his first
cartoner in a garage in 1974. “My father worked in a small space on the
other side of the railway. I often ask myself how ten people could work there
at first,” says Marchesini. In this case too, the answer is time.
Because, at the time, one would set up their own business after thinking about
the idea over and over again. A certain idea of business and of the world must
be built without haste. “My father had frequented the famous Istituto Aldini
Valeriani after the war, and he was the first employee of a man who was a
designer and came from Acma, the ‘training ship’
for all automatic
businesses in the Bologna area. He was basically a "cinno" (sonny), as we call them around here, and trained
in a company that still exists today. Those were also the years of hardcore
trade unionism, of tense relationships in factories. He came out of the company
telling us two things, one a great lie and one a great truth: “there will be just a few of us, five or
ten tops”, “we will do a job that will always
entertain us”. In that, he was right. Because this work opens up
new horizons. There is something different to do and to learn every day,»
explains Marchesini.
People
first, products second. This
is where customised machines and lines are manufactured for the packaging of
pharmaceutical and cosmetic products. A glocal
business firmly rooted in the territory and an extraordinary international
strength determined mostly by human capital. After all, since the beginning, Massimo
Marchesini had been thinking with his head focused on the outside world: thus
the first machine was created for Italy, while the second was already destined
for France. “It's unavoidable - those who do our job know that they
need to travel all over the world and, over the past few years, we have been
doing it through our foreign branches.” Today, the company boasts a turnover of €490
million and a 9.1% growth 76% of which deriving from the international market, mainly
Europe, China and Latin America. The team counts 2,500 operators, with over 800
located in the Pianoro headquarters. «We do not producehi-technology, but rathermedium-technology.
Our industry needs smart people, not products. Our collaborators, with either a
degree or a diploma, all come from the technical world. Inside the company, we
have an academy that provides ongoing training for everyone, no one excluded”.
The pack valley chain. The distinctive
trait of this business model is typical of the Emilian packaging valley. “Our main competitor
is the German market. Then there are also other production centres in France
and America, but they are still small. Plus there are those in China and India,
but it's a whole other world. The main characteristic of the Italian market is
flexibility, which means adapting to the market and to client needs.” It is also a
different kind of organisation, because here we work with an excellent chain
linked to the value chain - skilled and active businesses. All this enables
Marchesini to be more flexible, resilient and with a financial or work tension
that distributes along the entire chain. “Our production is made
entirely in Italy with an internal design. Once we acquire a company, we do not
move it because, in our world, we acquire skills and, were we to move the
factory, people and therefore value would be gone too.” Here is the strength of a
reticular district, not just a geographic one, with skills outside Emilia. But
there are two elements that make this mechanical gem stand out: investments are
made to become suppliers of complete packaging lines. Thus emerges the great
unity, shared design, adoption of integrable and interoperable software, the
technological push with application on industrial robot machines of
technologies linked with IT. Research is pervasive and involves the entire
company. It invests approximately 30% of the turnover in R&D. Then, for AI,
it counts on alliances and start-up acquisitions. Marchesini is convinced of
that. “AI will help us achieve unthinkable things, but it resides in the
capability of man to process, in the intuition of the young who walk along new
innovation paths. We are already in the digital world, it's a given fact, and
we are trying to understand what advantages it will bring us. It is not an
opportunity, but an obligation and, as soon as we get into it, the better the
future.” Arrive first, but with awareness. Brick after brick.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
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