Article by Maria Eva Virga
Rooted in the tradition of mechanics made in Italy, today Somipress is a global company. The company supplies high-quality aluminium die-cast components to the automotive, household appliance and mechanical engineering sectors. And it is also able to perform surface treatments, machining, operations and final checks to meet the highest quality requirements. Die-casting moulds are designed and manufactured in-house. All processing is carried out with the help of state-of-the-art machinery, which is continuously updated. In 2000, the SomiDesign division was created. It designs and manufactures products for the automotive, household appliance and furniture sectors with a focus on style. Last April, the current Managing Director Stefano Recchi joined the company. He sees the company’s development as a twofold challenge.
What are Somipress’ strategic goals?
Today, the company is preparing to embark on a challenge that has two directions. On the one hand, a further push towards internationalisation, to seize new opportunities in unattended market areas. And on the other hand, the diversification of product use sectors. As far as foreign countries are concerned, to date we are present in Romania with a production site and with two sales offices in China and North America, in order to follow the two markets more closely, and mainly, in the second case, our historical customer Electrolux.
Today we also see the possibility of entering other markets, in the cooking and gas sector, particularly in South America, North Africa and the Caucasian Republics. Alongside this purely geographical development, there is also the opportunity to diversify the sectors of use. Over the years, Somipress has focused on the two core sectors of household appliances and automotive. But the technology it produces can also be used in other mechanical sectors that the company has not yet explored, both in Italy and abroad. By working better on the geographical coverage of markets and in a logic of production diversification, the conditions for further development will be created. And it is precisely to lead this new phase that I have been asked to join the team since April this year.
Actually, there is also a third area of development for Somipress…
Yes. For the third area, which includes all the opportunities in the mechanical sector that are not related to the automotive and household appliance world, we are scouting, using internal and external resources, to map high-potential sectors, identify the types of applications for our products, and launch new projects. By the end of 2024, we intend to define an operational plan to attack the new market.
What products do you produce today, and what could be the products ‘of the future’?
In the household appliance sector, we produce gas burners for hobs, for which we see opportunities in the indicated foreign markets, but also a strand of technological innovation, through the development of premixed solutions, or energy evolutions of replacing natural gas with hydrogen. In the automotive sector, we supply the large component manufacturers with die-cast aluminium articles, mainly for the engine or mechanical part of cars. These components are currently made of aluminium, as it is a light metal and therefore more suitable, for example, in the development of electric cars. At the level of future prospects, we see the possibility of entering all sectors related to automotive components, thanks also to the development of our company SomiDesign: today we are able to propose ourselves on the market not only as producers of components based on customer drawings, but also by offering our own original design content.
