AITAL’s 25th General Assembly
High attendance of associated companies at the main annual event of the Association, which this year celebrates the 25th anniversary of its foundation
by Roberto Guccione
Even this year AITAL members responded in great numbers to the appointment for the general assembly, which was held on October 10th-12th, 2019, in Bussolengo, a town just a few miles away from Verona and on the banks of the river Adige. Members also had the opportunity of meeting in a festive atmosphere, for the 25th anniversary of the foundation of AITAL, created in 1994 following the fusion of the two pre-existing associations of aluminium Anodizers and Coaters. The opening speech by Aital’s President, Silvia Bertoli, recalled the main strategic objectives which the Association pursued throughout 2019, starting from the effort to enhance aggregation and cooperation among associated companies, but above all the promotion of a policy of environmental respect and sustainability, welcoming to the Association only those companies which complied with the legal requisites in terms of workers’ safety and respect of environmental norms.
Moving on to the works of the Assembly, Silvia Bertoli highlighted the innovation, introduced this year, of including even management, organization and information technology topics among the many speeches delivered during the three days of works. Particularly the speech by Pietro Gimelli, UNICMI, who outlined the project of the quality brand, Quality Installation of Doors and Windows, recently launched by the entire Italian industry of door and window manufacturers. This initiative may involve AITAL associates in the part of the value chain which deals with surface treatments.
Secretary General Giampaolo Barbarossa then illustrated the activities which the Association developed during 2019. The engagement in communication continued, with the enrichment in scientific content of the magazine, Oxit, which was the object of a graphic renewal linked to its online publication. The efforts in communication extend to the investment for AITAL’s new Internet portal, which will be online soon. One of the main innovations is the new search engine which will allow targeted research on the properties of aluminium surface treatment plants and on particular finishings, and also to watch images tied to the production and products of every Associated Company.
The activity of the technical work groups was intense even in 2019 and the new technical data sheets prepared by the “Coating products” and “Anodic Oxidizing” work groups are particularly useful. Thanks to the monitoring of dangerous substances used in the anodic oxidation and coating processes, Associates are regularly informed as to the compliance with all rules regarding the respect of workers’ health and of the environment, and on the new provisions and duties envisaged by the REACH directive.
Giampaolo Barbarossa then underlined the cooperation with QUALITAL, an important technical reference point for all the companies in the industry: “I am convinced that we could have interesting returns from the ongoing experiments on new anodizing techniques which QUALITAL has been carrying out for quite some time, which also led to the delivery of an European patent for an innovative “jet” anodizing process. QUALITAL is also carrying out studies and experiments with a pilot plant for the recovery of hydrogen which forms in the aluminium anodizing basins. Data collected so far are very encouraging and the cooperation with the Italian Hydrogen Association and the Energy Department of Milan’s Polytechnic opens up possibilities for the success of this research project”.