The Swiss multinational Maag Group – highly qualified in pumps and systems for filtration, pelletising, pulverising and recycling – offers the global market advanced process solutions for the chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, food and cosmetics industries. In recent years, the company has invested significant resources in the Italian headquarters in Rozzano, which has thus undergone rapid expansion in terms of both workforce, turnover and geographical expansion: today, this all-Italian excellence is in fact operating in all continents of the world. In this long interview, Claudio Bonafede, Managing Director of Maag Italy, talks about the future challenges that the company is called upon to face in an increasingly competitive and globalised context.
by Roberta Imbimbo
Dr. Bonafede, with what mission was Maag Italy born?
Founded back in 1927, the Italian headquarters in Rozzano has focused its core business on the engineering and production of external gear pumps for industrial chemical applications, acquiring Industrial product responsibility and thus becoming a centre of excellence with commercial responsibility at global level. Thanks to a strategic vision and an innovative business approach, the company has therefore experienced exponential growth both in terms of workforce (over time we have grown from 60 to 110 employees) and in terms of geographic expansion (it now operates in all continents of the world) and turnover (which has more than tripled in recent years). Its capillary presence on the global market – in truly strategic positions – and its highly specialised know-how allow it to develop highly innovative, sustainable and customisable premium solutions, thanks to which it has succeeded in increasing its brand reputation on international markets and significantly expanding its customer base, today mainly companies operating in the chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, food and cosmetics sectors.
How have you succeeded in establishing yourself in international markets?
In order to achieve increasingly ambitious goals, we have focused on a complete customisation of the offer, absolutely tailored to the needs of the individual customer: to specific needs, specific solutions. And to venture as far as possible into the fourth industrial revolution, our commitment has gone as far as reorganising our production facilities according to the paradigms of Industry 4.0 (investing significant resources in machinery designed to support green applications), to be increasingly oriented towards digitalisation, production and energy efficiency, environmental sustainability and the circular economy. From 2018 to date, we have also invested heavily in R&D to proactively anticipate the needs of an ever-changing market, to increase the efficiency of production processes and to drastically reduce production-related energy consumption: smart technologies applied to our processes have disruptively revolutionised the way we operate, enabling us to make our management models more efficient, to optimise production processes, and to constantly monitor the various operational processes, to create increasingly innovative and high-performance products aimed at satisfying the demands of the most demanding customers (in recent years we have developed several patents on innovative features and functions compared to the original product), to use biodegradable materials to enter a market segment in which Maag had never been so focused and, of course, also to increase our competitiveness in the global market. These peculiarities have in fact allowed us to clearly differentiate ourselves from our competitors and maximise customer satisfaction, which has always been a priority objective of a dynamic, innovative and customer-centric company.
How important is human capital for you? And how important is it, in the era of digital transformation, that people remain the beating heart of every process?
Human capital is undoubtedly our most valuable resource. Indeed, it is people who give value to work through competence and determination, all very important ingredients that translate into invaluable added value in the service of customers. The current economic scenario, characterised by ever-increasing globalisation and digitalisation, inevitably leads to a sharp increase in competitiveness between companies. In order to respond to the changing needs of a highly competitive digital market, in which machines work more and more closely with humans, we have decided to focus on a high degree of specialisation of our human resources (in terms of hard and soft skills), concentrating on continuous training; this is because people today are required to have increasingly specific skills, in order to be the promoters of a sustainable development policy. Our priority objective is therefore to enable every employee to be an active player in the dual ecological and digital transition underway, transferring to them increasingly specialised and innovative skills. Even in the last two years, objectively not an easy one, we have invested considerable resources in young talent, even quadrupling the pink quotas in the team (key positions in the Board of Directors are now held by two men and two women). This confirms our commitment to building an innovative and stimulating working environment that offers great prospects for professional growth.
So many achievements to date. Future objectives?
To continue growing, aiming at market segments that have been unexplored up to now, and to further improve the efficiency of the Rozzano site, which, in collaboration with several Italian and foreign Universities, is working on the engineering of revolutionary products aimed at supporting applications for the pharmaceutical and food sectors. An ambitious challenge to be pursued in order to be ever closer to customers everywhere in the world.
For more info (https://maag.com)
