On November 29th the Italian Embassy in Berlin will held a very important event, the German-Italian Innovation Conference, involving the most important German and Italian Industries: SAPA
has been invited as well, for lecturing about Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0, together with Bosch and Lamborghini
I got a nice and enthralling story I want to share with you today.
My father began working at an early age; he helped his father producing handcrafted wooden frames.
As of today, we shall consider them works of art: all custom made, handcrafted one by one pieces. Each frame differed from all the others. A painstaking work, highly artisan, though long and complex; they couldn’t be mass-produced frames, and their production was necessarily limited.
My father was dissatisfied with this. He wanted to take action for a more efficient and streamlined process, for the purpose of producing more frames, supplying more customers and cost cutting.
The only word I can imagine for that kind of situation is “innovation”. Take a deep-rooted process and improve it, make it more efficient, well performing, smart.
Innovation: The engine that motivated and drove my father since the beginning.
Today, after all these years, sacrifices, tireless hard work, the engine that drives SAPA is just the same. And I never expected that, in only one year, we achieved such a broad consensus in this regard.
First our win at the SPE Automotive TPO Conference in Detroit, for being one of the top five patents, with the likes of Ford.
Then today, called on to lecture at the German-Italian Innovation Conference, at the Italian Embassy in Berlin, together with Bosh, Lamborghini and BASF. A great opportunity to talk about how Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 principles are applied in SAPA.
It’s been a long time since my grandfather’s workshop existence, switching to my father’s specialization in automotive plastic moulding, and, in a week, I will talk about innovation, the same innovation I breathe since I was born.
The German-Italian Innovation Conference theme is “Investing in Italian Innovation. Digital solutions and the challenge of Industry 4.0”. The event has been organized by ITKAM (The Italian Chamber of Commerce for Germany) in collaboration with the Italian Embassy in Berlin and ICE Agency, on November 29th.
A valuable conference, bringing together the most important Italian and German Industries, not just in the field of automotive, but all crucial manufacturing sectors: fashion, design, food, web and digital, agro-food and technology.
What will I talk about in detail?
I promise you, I will share the full report in future articles. However, in the meantime, I would like to give you a sneak peek.
I’ve been asked to deliver a lecture about Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0. Indeed, I will bring SAPA’s experience, focusing on the three deciding factors that allowed us in these years to develop an increasing specialization.
An internal R&D department is of paramount importance to get clues for faster and cost-effectively improving performance of car components.
We have developed, tested and patented these solutions (our patent figures double year on year) so that the processes are increasingly efficient, removing the car maker’s concerns: higher quality components, lower costs and rapidity, including at critical times, thanks to a short decision-making chain.
In my speech in Berlin, I will definitely address part of these aspects.
I will also cover a few fundamental issues related to the automotive future, and which of them we are working on every day in SAPA.
This is about Innovation as well.
See you when I get back from Berlin, after attending the German-Italian Innovation Conference, for sharing my overall impressions and my full speech.