In Fiorano Modenese, near
the motor racing track, there is a high-tech gem that has never stopped racing.
And competing. Thus, Vsystem,
starting from plastic deformation of metals and welding, now works with
titanium, nickel, special and stainless steel alloys. For FARE INSIEME
Giampaolo Colletti interviews Silvia Gaiani, Ceo of Vsystem
di Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
Masterpieces are made of
details. And those details can be small, tiny, even miniaturized. To clarify
matters, the masterpiece consists welding extremely thin pipes and sheets
ranging between 0.6 and 1.6 millimetres thick. Practically a pin. That’s where the magic
lies. So, to tell the story of Vsystem, a high-tech gem located in the sunny Modena plain known
to the world as the Italian “motor valley”, we have to start from that tiny
welding which, however, provides great performance. And is capable of becoming
as big as the whole wide world. Today, this high-tech business succeeds in enabling as many as six
out of ten Formula One teams to get out on the track, as half of these racing
cars feature Vsystem
components. Everything started in 2013 thanks to Gruppo Veca, the majority stakeholder. The
objective: applying the experience acquired in the production of machined
components for the motorsport sector to the field of exhaust systems.. “We have
welders with extraordinary experience to process these materials and these
thicknesses. We are now leaders in the supply of high-tech components to
guarantee the safety and performances of Formula One driving and motor-sports
drivers in general. The highest standards are needed for both the safety of
drivers and the challenging competitive objectives of the racing teams,”
illustrates Silvia Gaiani, CEO of Vsystem. The company currently boasts a turnover of €4 million
and has 25 employees. Gaiani is a passionate motorcycle rider. She was born in
1976 and has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bologna
followed by a PhD. Her career started in Ducati, which she left in 2007 to take
on another challenge in Slovenia for a company producing exhaust systems.
The
high-tech product. We find ourselves in Fiorano Modenese, a town of
just over fifteen thousand inhabitants south of Modena, near the testing racing circuit. The facility covers an area of
850 sqm for the production site, 300 for the offices, plus a new production site of over 1000 sqm which
will become operative by the end of August. The facility guarantees the handling of raw
materials and finished products for the production of small and medium series
of components destined to the automotive, motorsports, biomedical, aerospace and defence segments.
It focuses on solutions using special alloys for hydroforming,the bending of thin-walled
tubes and precision-welded joints. The
company that Gaiani has been leading from the start operates in a niche sector,
that of the supply of high-tech components to guarantee the safety and
performance of drivers such as the halo, i.e. the safety device that surrounds F1 drivers saving their
lives in accidents that used to be fatal up until a short while ago.
But, over the years, it started dealing with other sectors as well. To obtain
lightweight and high-resistance
pieces, the company specializes in hydroforming, pipe bending, welding,
equipment design and special alloys. Just think that everything starts from a bent pipe. “Making
exhausts means creating items obtained from plastic deformation. We produce the
pipe and bend it. To do so, we employ hydroforming, a rare technology that uses
water to give shape. Only three companies use it here in Italy, and we are one
of them. We work with nickel alloys, titanium and steel that withstands high
temperatures. Our company has a plastic deformation department and a welding
department for assembling. Then there is the quality department, which is
strategic for the analysis of products and processes,” stresses Gaiani.
The new markets.
Hydroforming,
as we said. It is not a new technology as it came out in the 1970s. However, it
now does quite different things than in the beginning. “Given an object with a
complex shape, it reduces the number of its elements with a unique ambitious
objective: simplify. So you can eliminate more parts and reduce the number of
pieces”. Behind all this, it there is a frenzied study that focuses on
excellence. But, after all, this is the recipe to look into other fields. “We obtained the ISO 9100 certificate so we could
reach out to large international customers in the aviation and defence sectors.
This certification is an important result which we have obtained in record time
and which enables us to tackle new challenges while guaranteeing the quality
level our clients are used to. All this came about during that seemingly-suspended
period of the pandemic which, however, enabled us to define the organization
and skills needed to access new markets”. Racing
ahead fast, without stopping. Taking advantage of this fragile time to think
outside the box and innovate. After all, this is what the best do, trying to
plan new pages for the future.
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