MANUFACTURING A NETWORK

To understand how a Valcucine product is born you need to look at the complete network of know-how that feeds the creative entrepreneurship of its model. One of the keys is the relationship with their subcontractors.

The layout of the factory itself is essential to understanding Valcucine's Just In Time capability.

Subcontractors

Shifting production and storage responsibility to subcontractors may give you flexibility, but how do you ensure that the product they deliver is of a high quality? This was resolved through collaboration, working with the subcontractor, developing a common culture and allowing the subcontractor to grow. Three keys Valcucine focused on in identifying the right partners:

1. Reliability: was the manufacturer reliable? This happened easily through word of mouth, and a shared community of entrepreneurs: one of the great advantages of having an industrial cluster with a deep shared culture.

2. Value: Having a detailed knowledge of costs- this allowed them to help understand where subcontractor improvements could be made and enable them to "restore" a competitive drive between subcontractors in producing better quality product. One of the downsides of much of the industrial cluster culture is the over-reliance on certain suppliers based on old family or business ties. This can lead to slacking of standards and quality improvement efforts. Being able to restore a degree of "healthy" competitiveness within (as opposed to competing for an outside market) the cluster was a key in enabling them to empower local know-how.

3. Ideology: was the manufacturer willing to "buy into" Valcucine's ideology, willing to change and adapt? Being a design innovation focused company, the need for continual improvements and adaptation was a prerequisite for many of their sub-component needs. In an industrial cluster, a lot of time, energy and resources (direct and indirect) are spent building shared knowledge and culture. Valcucine wanted to move forward with companies best equipped to build a future along the long road. Key example is Valcucine's relationship with Biesse where the partnership allowed Biesse to evolve as a premier high quality environmentally friendly supplier of finished solutions. Previously they had Ðfor example- worked with traditional varnishes. In a risk taking partnership they worked with Valcucine to adopt non-toxic based varnishes into production. This enabled them to supply Valcucine with needed components but also made them into the premier supplier for a growing customer base demanding high quality, environmental solutions.

A DISCUSSION WITH MARCO SANTIN, OWNER OF BIESSE

In 1990 Valcucine approached us to inquire into our willingness to provide non-toxic painting and finishing for the parts we were manufacturing. This was new and challenging for us and thus represented also a risk. Valcucine gave us support to grow into this new area by guaranteeing a service demand if we were willing to develop this new competency. It was an informal verbal guarantee (that is how it happens here), in return we needed to show a willingness to work on new challenges with them.

Our rapport has been one of mutual admiration based on personal contact. We know each other and respect what each other brings to the table. We are - in a sense - buying each other's cultural values, not just a products and service. Both Valcucine and Biesse are young companies, making us mutually flexible, not set in our ways and easy to communicate in an informal and direct way.

Our constant mentality of wanting to expand our capability, improve, and rethink how we do things is at the core of our strength. For us, the adoption of new technologies is fundamentally a question of adopting new "mental system" whereby we change the culture of making. Where we used to make simple, low investment OEM products, we've now adopted CNC equipment, advanced our non-toxic finishing.

Our future looks good. This is a good area of growth, we've developed – through Valcucine's relationship – leading expertise in the manufacturing of "green" solutions while –at the same time- being able to provide more and more refined and technically complex finished products. We've shifted our practices to compete on green, and have moved up the value chain to also compete with finished products.

Continued improvement and innovation will occur by ensuring that we are part of early decision making & research so that we can help solve and provide the solutions necessary for the next generation of product solutions.

This innovation hinges on our ability to collaborate, create a common culture and take risk sharing approaches to research.