The new Technical Solution Center of ISB Industries, one of the primary players in the world in the sector of industrial components, was inaugurated in November 2022 by Rubiera (Reggio Emilia, Italy) headquarters. The center is hosted in a building taking up 1800 square metres, where are included technical offices, control and testing departments and laboratories, besides a training room and a conference space with over 200 seats.
It is the result of an investment worth 4 million Euros, to support the growth plan deployed in recent years by the Emilia company, established in 1981 as Italcuscinetti by Bartolomeo Ghirardini, still at the helm of the Group, in strict collaboration with his daughter Chiara and by his son-in-law Giuseppe Vernetti, both Managing Directors.
Technological fulcrum
The activity core is represented by the work of the team made up by engineers and technicians who, in strict connection with foreign branches, are entrusted with the phases of research and development and co-design, besides carrying out tests and support activities for customers in the pre-sales and after-sales phases. In the opinion of Salvatore Petrillo, Quality Manager of ISB Industries, the Technical Solution Center is perfectly suitable for representing the company’s real technological fulcrum.
«Dialoguing in real time with the laboratories of our manufacturing sites – he states – we can directly follow the feasibility research of new products, as well as carry out the development of customized solutions for customers. Furthermore, in this site, we perform the scheduling of sampling plans with control procedures given by headquarters, which are shared with the branches through server. In laboratories we perform tests of metrological assessment of goods, which precedes the shipment from manufacturing sites, as well as the analysis of prototypes, controls and calculations of the application duration and also comparative metrological tests among bearings by different brands, which can also be demanded by customers, for which we execute a technical-comparative report with our products, after testing the bearing precision and its effective vibration on the application».
For an all-round service
All these activities take place through the available machine fleet, which exhaustively covers the range of fundamental analyses to know everything about the bearing. Therefore, there are hardness testers and roughness testers (Mitutoyo SV-3100, also in portable version for direct tests on field) for the surface assessment, roundness meters for race geometry analysis and an anderometer for the classification of noise and vibrations, which provides fundamental values about the bearing’s vibration and about how its components contribute in the same. Besides, newcomer is Alpa Trust LS Horizon machine, first of its kind in Italy, for the highest possible level of dimensional analysis.
In the Technical Solution Center the sample analysis takes place too, because, the engineer Petrillo underlines: «Customers are interested in the homologation of the product introduced into their application. For this reason, after receiving the product that we deem most suitable for their requirements, they can test it directly on their lines and then return it back to us, to allow us to execute the comparative tests among the parameters of the bearing leaving our factory and its successive performance. This permits us to reclassify it after both instrumental and visual analyses, preparatory to providing users with the most possible precise answer: if the bearing has passed the tests, the product is homologated on customers’ application, whereas in case of not convincing result we can develop with them the best alternatives among our bearings or the necessary modifications on their applications».  In the ambit of after sales activities, instead, are included the analyses carried out on bearings by ISB or by other brands. In this case technicians, after acquiring the preliminary necessary information on the product, its operational and environmental conditions and eventual documentation on malfunctions and failures, can perform a detailed technical report for customers, base for eventual in-depth comparisons that will occur directly in the factory to study eventual modifications to the application.
A growing Group
With the start of the activities in this forefront technological centre, ISB Industries further strengthens its capability of listening and providing advanced services to customers worldwide, due to an overall strengthening plan that in the last five years has led the company to invest over 20 million Euros. «The strategic projects introduced – highlights the managing director Giuseppe Vernetti – have concerned the company in its whole, since we have decided betting on strategic branches and new manufacturing sites, besides developing Rubiera headquarters.
Concerning this, the Technical Solution Center is the last piece that joins the Logistic Pole fully upgraded and inaugurated in 2019, which with a capacity of over 56,000 pallets and 235,000 boxes in stock is broadly the largest warehouse for bearings in Italy and third in Europe». The automatic pallet warehouse, implemented by Ferretto Group, takes up an area of 2500 sq.m., with a 25-metre development in height and is equipped with 70×36 work aisles, with a capacity of 31,000 pallet places among which 7 stacker cranes and 5 shuttles work and ensure the handling of 235 pallets per hour, with a positioning precision of cells under 2 mm. A forefront solution that, numbers in hand, has already permitted to improve by 25% the performances of Reggio company, operating in over 90 Countries in the world (with 5 direct branches) and able to achieve a turnover of about 130 million Euros through its product lines: the “historical” ISB for bearings and components, OT Seals dedicated to sealing rings, TRM for linear systems, Mac Power for joint heads and Eurotrasmissioni, last completion project of the Group’s range, focused on the manufacturing and marketing of power transmission components.
