By Ian Latimer, managing director, Emmegi (UK)
Compare the Emmegi product line up with most of the competition and you’ll see it’s considerably more extensive. Where our competitors might have one model in each category, we will almost invariably have two, three, or even four.
I think that’s because Emmegi in Italy is fundamentally a company run by engineers, in a country where engineering flair and ingenuity is celebrated and admired. It’s no coincidence that Emmegi is based in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy, also the home of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Ducati.
As you’d expect, Emmegi’s product development is primarily driven by market and customer need. However, that’s always balanced by an overwhelming commitment to innovation. That probably explains why we have no fewer than 17 four-axis machining centres in our range, whereas some of our biggest competitors only have four.
What that means for customers is that we will always have the right machine in our line-up to match any requirement. There’s never any question of us having to shoehorn one of our models into a customer’s set up because it’s an approximate fit – we will invariably have an Emmegi or even a Tekna model variant from our sister brand which fits exactly. That obviously makes our catalogue pretty weighty and keeps our sales managers on their toes, but ultimately, it’s a very positive benefit.
In terms of ‘value engineering’, I recognise that it might not look like the most efficient way of doing things. However, Emmegi is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and is at the heart of a €300m group with a worldwide workforce of nearly 1,500, so it is clearly getting most things right.
Under the Voilap Holding Group, Emmegi focuses on what it describes as ‘the standardisation and modularity of product elements’ – essentially making key elements of the machines interchangeable, as we see across our Comet and Phantomatic ranges. But what it also pursues, and what ultimately distinguishes it from the competition, is ‘customisation and configurability’, coupled with a focus on design and reliability.
At Emmegi (UK), we’re 10 years old ourselves in 2020. Looking back over the past decade, I know that we can attribute a good deal of our current success to the engineering drive and ingenuity of our Italian head office.
The team at Emmegi in Italy thrive on continual improvements and on a programme of constant advancement. Never satisfied with a machine just because it’s a best seller, they are always looking to drive the next phase of technical development and to be the first with new features and innovations.
It’s no surprise that the group has just received an Honourable Mention in the XXVI Premio Compasso d’Oro ADI awards for our innovative Fusion 4H PVC welder machine, which has already earned a place of honour in the ADI Design Index and been exhibited at Milan’s Museum of Science and the ‘Casa dell’Architettura’ in Rome.
The Voilap Holding Group now encompasses both industrial and digital businesses. That ongoing determination to be at the forefront of what it is new means that, in recent years, the digital business has been stepping up its investment in products and technologies related to next generation Smart Cities.
That includes software and e-commerce platforms, digital content and hardware. Voilap’s Smart City Gate, for instance, is a roadside digital display solution which can be instantly and remotely programmed with advertising and public service communications, but which also accommodates 5G antennas and CCTV monitoring.
The group has also recently acquired a business called Imecon, which supplies the technological solutions, totems and screens. Applications for those include smart vehicle communications, smart buildings, railway stations and shopping centres. As a group, Voilap’s drive for innovation seems unstoppable.
