Felm, specialist in low and medium voltage
The broad stock of electric motors in different polarities and the consolidated partnership concerning inverters, combined with the widespread distribution service and the support in the development and implementation of special executions, are the main highlights that allow Felm to stand out for quality and competitiveness on a national and international scale.
Felm stemmed in the Sixties from the farsightedness of Michele Colombo, with its activity initially focused on the sale of electric material and afterwards shifted to the design and implementation of electric motors in its historical headquarters at Inveruno, in the outskirts of Milan (Italy).
«In the Eighties – the business manager Riccardo Pirani explains – the founder’s son, Fernando, in a historical period when East Europe was the core of numerous delocalization processes, had the great intuition of going farthest, reaching China. Precisely here, after attentive evaluations, they identify a company willing to accept this new challenge, i.e. establishing a commercial partnership and manufacturing electric motors intended for the demanding Italian market and not only. Italian market that already at that time ranked second by importance for the Old Continent, in terms of turnover, consumptions and technical requirements, preceded by Germany and surpassing France and Spain».
A first step that in the lapse of few years led Felm to a further significant growth. To succeed in supplying the market with solutions keeping pace with the ever-growing and stricter performance requirements, from 1990 to 2000 the company’s technical staff starts in fact redesigning some product lines in co-design and in co-engineering with its Chinese partner.
«New motors –Pirani adds– with some improved technical aspects, to make them even more interesting for Italian, European and Middle East markets».
Meanwhile Felm completes this even more performing product line with the assembling at its Italian manufacturing unit of special solutions.
«A double operational soul – Pirani adds – that allows the company to satisfy a wider and wider array of requirements, with a growth curve that goes on until 2018, when its owners decided making a new investment plan. Key year, this one, marking out an important decisive turning point under all respects».
The owners accept in fact new market challenges, fixing new ambitious targets that result in the necessary internal reorganization, in a new enlargement of the product catalogue and of the range of action, on both a national and international scale, as well as the evaluation of partnerships with companies of world renown, merging also branches in some specific geographical areas (Europe, Africa and Middle East).
«Strategic actions –Pirani further highlights– that in these years have facilitated the double-digit growth of the turnover and that underline the company’s will of standing out in an increasingly global and competitive survey. How? Providing, through the partnership established with a Spanish company, also complete high added-value mechatronic solutions, that is to say motors equipped with drives».
The capability of offering a complete mechatronic package means for Felm satisfying the requirements of OEM and end-users, in addition to the possibility of supplying also power transformers, when necessary, due to the collaboration with a historical company, Elettromeccanica Colombo (one of the most ancient Italian electric enterprises, founded in 1901 at the dawn of the industrial development).
«With an export share – Pirani specifies and ends – that grew by 50% last year versus the previous one, with an incidence on the turnover amounting to around 30%. The ambitious goal is to continue this trend, without neglecting the domestic market that we always consider with utmost interest».
Standard and special, LV and MV in the different polarities
Relying on the experience and the specialization of its team, today Felm can guarantee a technical support able to meet even the most sophisticated installation and maintenance requisites, assuring an excellent-level international service. As already pointed out, the product offer can boast standard and special solutions, carried out upon precise specifications, of electric motors in low and medium voltage, from 0.12 to 10-12 MW, in the different polarities.
«Executions – Pirani states – that find applications in sectors connected with the world of pumps, fans and compressors at industrial level. With the opportunity, due to the development of more and more performing state-of-the-art solutions, of supplying various customers operating in marine or in steelworks industries, in paper and cement factories».
Common denominator of the company’s product range is anyway quality, due to the availability of electric motors manufactured with selected raw materials, provided with components whose most critical and stressed parts are attentively chosen, to succeed in minimizing or even annulling defaults, assuring a high competitive edge.
«Quality – Pirani highlights – that, in virtue of the recent investment, can be tested in our new testing room equipped for motors up to 160 kW».
Nowadays the broad choice of motors can be also provided with a predictive maintenance sensor that, through the constant unceasing control of some parameters, assures the good operation by preventing eventual breakdowns, i.e. undesired machine downtimes.
In this context, Felm looks then at the future with the awareness of being able to operate as a valid partner in both the national and international ambit.
About Felm
Felm has been operating in the electric motor sector since 1960 and relies on consolidated background in the market of rotating electric machinery. Currently managed by the third generation with Luca, Carolina and Matteo Colombo, respectively entrusted with the roles of market development, administration and technical management, the company avails itself of a staff of 35 skilled workers and an overall operational surface of 17,000 square metres. The 13,000 taken up by headquarters at Inveruno (Milan, Italy), are in fact enlarged by two sites specialized in windings and repairs of windings for HV motors from 300 to 3 MW and in windings and repairs of low-voltage motors (winding from 1 to 1,500 kW and brake motors up to 55 kW). Four are instead the subsidiaries in the world (in Germany, in Great Britain, in the United Arab Emirates and in China), with the addition of other strategic partners in Europe (spread in Spain, Slovenia, Austria and Greece), besides a maintenance and stocking service centre still in Germany. A structure that also benefits from a diffused distribution network that allows the company to be present in all main Countries.