Italmec: Ideally positioned

From Turin to Dubai, Italmec has been a huge success story

Federico Cellini, CEO, Italmec Group

In 1956, the Cellini brothers - Giovanni, Gabriele and Francesco - founded a small company that specialised in the production of furniture and wood components in Italy. Within a few decades, the brand was well established beyond the country's borders. Federico Cellini, Giovanni's son, ably took up the dream and challenge of the company's founders to create an international business. Transferring to Singapore, a dynamic hub of the new Asiatic economy, Federico worked as commercial agent in the metal-mechanic sector. His catalogue included pneumatic manipulators produced at Cles, a small town in Val di Non in the Trento region of northern Italy, in the Dalmec factory, a family company.

In no time Federico took the business to new heights. After consolidating a network of commercial contacts in 1993, he created Calmex International (S) Pte Ltd, a joint venture with the co-ownership of Hikawa Mechatronics, to sell the products of Dalmec in Asia. Four years later, Italmec Industries (S) Pte Ltd was created with a head office in Singapore. In a short time, Italmec launched manipulators of European design, which presented considerable advantages for the local industries in the Singapore market. In place of cranes and hoists, the company provided innovative solutions, tailored to the various problems of purchase.

Dalmec's tools are the finest example of personalised design, produced to perform specific movements, and projected according to the functional necessities of the production process. Italmec has specialised in the customisation of its offers by supplying manipulators that are able to satisfy handling requirements in a large number of industrial sectors: Mechanical, chemical, pharmaceutical, food, electronics, textiles, electro-mechanical, etc. The advantages are immediately competitive: Lowering cost and optimising the work flow in conditions of complete security for the workers, as recognised also by the European Certification ENI ISO 9001. Fifteen years after its foundation, Italmec had won the challenge by establishing itself in most Asian countries with a portfolio of respectable clients: Sony, Pfizer, Shimano and Baker Hughes, to name a few.

Also the data speaks for itself. In the automobile sector alone, more than 85 per cent of cars produced in the world are assembled with manipulators from the group. Today, Italmec represents a successful holding, and the investments continue to confirm the choices that have been made. After the diversification of business sectors and consolidation of sales offices in Thailand (Bangkok) and Saudi Arabia (Riyadh), the expansion has widened. In one direction, it leaned towards the Mediterrenean basin with the establishment of Egyptmec (Cairo) - considered as a new development potential in world markets - and in the opposite direction towards Arab countries with the relocation of the management centre to Dubai.

- sadiq@khaleejtimes.com