On the Bolognese Apennines, in the valley of the Reno River, at the crossroads of Emilia and Tuscany, stands one of Italy's most cutting-edge precision engineering companies.

With a turnover of more than 67 million euros (2018) and 300 employees, today Metalcastello is a company specializing in the production of gears for mechanical transmissions, part of the Spanish CIE Automotive group, among the world's leaders in the automotive components sector. Serving as CEO since 2015 is Stefano Scutigliani, with more than two decades of experience behind him, gained particularly in the Caterpillar Group, where he held various positions, including at the inter-national level.

WHAT ARE THE TOOLS THAT AN ENTERPRISE CANNOT DO WITHOUT? The business world is now divided into two: companies that have invested in technology and become excellences and those that compete on cost; strategy that may prove to be a competitive advantage in the short term, in a low-cost Italy-simply consider that Indian engineers are paid more than Italian engineers and that the cost of Italian labor is 30% lower than that of German labor-but is certainly not a winner in the long term: one fine day the margins will thin out to such an extent that it will be of no use for the competitive advantage And it will be pain. It is time to reverse course, otherwise the risk is to disappear.

The sensitive issue we now address Is a dialogue with institutions for them to improve infrastructure. Not to transport materials, we don't lack that, but To transport gray matter. Unfortunately, for a ridiculous distance-only 50 kilometers separating us from Bologna to travel which takes longer than getting to Milan-we are enormously penalized in the choice of engineers who, fresh out of the University of Bologna, Modena, Ferrara or Reggio Emilia, prefer to knock on the door of many other local realities before arriving at ours.

PRODUCTS AND PROCESSES: WHAT HAS CHANGED IN METALCASTELLO'S PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT? About five years ago, we invested in SAP management software, which has enabled us to connect and integrate different application areas and departmental management systems-from goods entry to production, from logistics to administration-optimizing all flows and processes. In this way, not only we connected internally within the company, but also with all the other companies in the group. This benefited us enormously in terms of speed. And since many of our customers also use SAP, it was easy to interface more quickly with them as well. We are currently trying to do the same thing supplier front. We have then been one of the first companies in the Bologna area to invest in MES for production management, planning, scheduling and control, which allowed us a Complete visibility of all the activities of the different departments and closer product quality analysis through production performance analysis.

Currently, with Bonfiglioli Consulting, with whom we have been working for many years on the concepts lean digital transformation, we are selecting a more advanced MES that, together with a new scheduler and material management software, will allow us to produce "just in time" For major automotive players.

At the same time, however, we worked on men and processes because. you have to synchronize everyone's speed to travel at 300 kilometers per hour without accidents. In fact, the other key factor that has allowed us to gain more and more market share in recent years is the know-how. But what is meant by know-how? Some time ago, we came across a player looking for a supplier capable of creating a very special component: a shaft with a bell welded around it. The player selects the eight best suppliers with the top technology, provides the drawings and waits. Some time passes, two of the selected suppliers create the prototype, but prefer to call themselves out. Six of them make it to the end, put their respective models in the test area and start running them. And it happens like in the Duracell battery commercial: all of them one by one stop or break, and only one piece continues, and that's ours. That's the know-how, a heat treatment with the right recipe of materials that enabled an effective and final bell weld. In this case, a technician who had been working with us on heat treatment for more than 20 years with enormous experience gained in the industry.

NEXT TRENDS THAT WILL GOVERN THE INDUSTRY? There is a lot of curiosity about additive technology, but it will be a few decades before it can be used: certainly can serve in prototyping, but it is still too slow and too expensive for mass production. Then, of course, the machines will get faster and faster. For example, a new technology recently acquired is Power Skiving, a kind of modern hobbing machine that makes the part in one-tenth the time and with higher quality. The future lies in the hands of automation, increasingly high-performance equipment, control entrusted to machines, and more sophisticated work organization. The future is a factory without men, not because the men will not be there, but because they will work from home!