HIGH TECH MILLING SYSTEMS The days of milling process collisions due to machine errors during production are over, thanks to the software and numerical controls offered by Fidia SpA, as Barbara Rossi discovers when talking to the company’s high speed milling division communication area manager, Mr Piliego, and to its co-funded research manager, Mr Tamburini.
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idia SpA has grown and evolved in a significant way over the years, after being founded by its current CEO Mr Giuseppe Morfino in Turin in 1974. At the start, its activity was entirely focused on the production of numerical controls for complex form milling. In the 1980s the company had already grown in terms of staff and turnover, and had opened a series of foreign branches, while the 1990s saw the introduction of numerical controls for high speed algorithms and the start of its own high-speed milling machine production. This led the company, which has always had an international vocation, to reorganise itself in two areas, namely electronics and mechanics, opening two mechanical manufacturing
sites, respectively in Turin and Forlí. This was followed by the establishment of the first Chinese branch, of a solely commercial and support nature, just like the other foreign sites. The first decade of the 21st century saw the company being listed on the Milan stock exchange and acquiring Sitra Automazione, a company based in the north western Italian town of Alessandria and specialised in the production of inverters and spindles. This was followed by the opening of a second Chinese site, as well as by the development of a third Italian manufacturing plant also based in Forlí. Today Fidia SpA has a worldwide staff of 360, eight foreign branches, three manufacturing sites, electronics production
taking place at its Turin headquarters (San Mauro Torinese), a turnover of €45m and a joint-venture in China (whose manufacturing is solely for the local market). High-speed millers (HSM), generating about 70 per cent of turnover, form Fidia’s core business, but the company is also specialised in numerical controls and digital drives, milling heads, accessories and software. In terms of HSM, the company has a wide range of sizes and models of five-axes vertical millers. The last series developed in 2008 is Gantry which, given the large dimensions of its models, is particularly important because it extends the applicability of Fidia machines to pieces of a size up to 20 metres and more.
