40 years of technical innovation and customisation for the Salico Group Salico Group

40 yEARS of TEChNiCAL iNNovATioN ANd CuSTomiSATioN foR ThE SALiCo GRouP

Giorgio Viscardi, Sales manager

The Salico Group, initially established in Italy and now comprising affiliate and partner companies based in Italy, Spain, UK and US, puts quality and technological innovation at the core of its business and today serves customers globally with its market-leading solutions in the cutting lines sector. Claudia Lonardi talks to Giorgio Viscardi, Sales Manager, to find out more.

Salico was first established in 1978 by Giordano Colombo and Carlo Salvioni near the town of Lecco, 40 km from Milan. It specialises in the development, engineering, manufacturing, operation and servicing of equipment for processing, finishing and cutting ferrous and non-ferrous metal strips. Its extensive product range includes slitting lines, cut to length lines, tension levelling lines, coating lines, packing lines and lines for foil mainly aimed at processing steel, aluminium, but also copper and brass. The company’s history is rich in technological innovations. In 1986, for instance, it invented and patented the world’s first eccentric rotary shear for thin gauge strip up to 3 mm, and in 1991 it designed the eccentric rotary tilting shear, for cutting trapezoids especially useful for the automotive industry. The main benefit of this innovative shear was to reduce the waste of high value materials, such as steel and aluminium. Among the most recent products developed by Salico, a new magnetic stacker for trapezoidal sheets of larger capacity, launched in 2016, and a shear that makes curved cuts, again mainly aimed at car manufacturers.

local roots, global presence

Over the years, Salico has established a strong global presence, starting from a number of companies in Italy: Salico SpA, Fumagalli, Salico Automation and Salico Foil. In 2007, in order to extend its international reach, together with the Gerbolés family, it established Salico Hispania S.A., a mechanical engineering company located in Madrid, Spain, which focuses on the engineering of processing lines, including cleaning and degreasing lines for steel and aluminium. In 2012, Salico acquired West Midlands-based company KCS Herr Voss UK Ltd., specialists in the design and engineering of tension levelling lines and now one of Salico’s technology centres. Finally, in 2015, Salico and the North American company SES Engineering formed a joint venture and created SES Salico Finishing and Processing, located in Alliance, Ohio, which serves the North American market.

The main customer segments for Salico include the car industry, aluminium and steel makers and a wide and diverse range of manufacturers who utilise metal sheets and coils, from those who produce pipes to ship-builders. Although the company’s reach is global, the owners deeply value Salico’s Italian roots and heritage. “Salico was established in Italy and it started by serving Italian customers“, Mr Viscardi said. As well as Italy, existing clients are mainly based in Spain and US. Other international markets that are currently opening up to the company with very promising results include Russia, India and South America. Salico is also currently planning to better explore the potential of European markets. It intends to target Germany in particular because of its significant car manufacturing and steelwork industries. “Our products appeal to the German market because of their advanced technology, their high quality and their competitive prices compared to local German brands”, Mr Viscardi pointed out.

Quality assurance

Salico’s customers require top-of-the-range products and services and the quality of its machinery is based on the company’s centralised manufacturing approach. “Salico manufactures everything it needs internally, which is a plus in order to ensure the highest level of quality”, Mr Viscardi explained. It only sources welded steel structures externally – based on its own designs- from a net of well-established local suppliers with which it has established close cooperation and that are located in close geographical proximity, in the unique and internationally renowned “Brianza industrial district”, which is where the majority of Salico’s competitors are based.

In terms of investments, Salico is not planning other acquisitions in the near future. “At the moment, we are extremely busy, especially with our Italian, Russian and US customers, and our factories are full of machines that are non-stop produced to satisfy the number of orders we have been awarded by our customers. We would need more space, and we are evaluating a number of options,” Mr Viscardi told us. “Also, we are investing in renewing and continuously modernising our tool machines.” For example, the company has recently purchased high-precision grinding machinery that enables the production of more durable components and decreases product waste.

According to Mr Viscardi, future growth for Salico will be based mainly on organic growth which will give priority to confirm and expand Salico’s presence abroad since Italy is historically very well serviced by the company. “We firmly believe in high technology products,” Mr Viscardi told us. “And we are focused, even though not only, on producing tailor-made machinery that meets the specific needs of each client; this is our main strength. We always strive to introduce something new for our customers.”