Meccanica Pi.Erre, Leader in the Trimming and Machining of Castings and Die Casts

Stemming from Ruggero Pederzoli’s intuition and backed by 35 years of experience, the company is today a consolidated group operating globally which is planning a future growth based on cooperation between generations

by Mario Conserva

Meccanica Pi.Erre Srl is Italy’s main company and one of the world’s leaders, in the aluminium die cast and castings trimming and machining technology, specializing in providing a complete service of trimming tools, trimming tools combined with mechanical machining units, trimming and deburring presses, dedicated trimming machines, machines and plants for final machining of castings, thereby covering the entire trimming and machining segment for all sorts and sizes of items. The company has grown, accruing over three decades of experience on the field and developing advanced and updated in-house design and production technologies, and among its clients there are the great Italian and foreign casting and die cast foundries and the main end users of items, with an offer of products and services customized to meet the clients’ requirements.
We met Ruggero Pederzoli, founder of Meccanica Pi.Erre and of the Pederzoli Group, with his daughter Federica and his son Marco in the Bedizzole plant (near Brescia), at the heart of the Italian aluminium die casting and foundry district; he provided us with a brief introduction to his company, which he proudly refers to as the Pederzoli Group.
“For more than thirty years we have worked with the same mission and the same determination to provide our clients with the best solutions from a technical and construction standpoint, my aim from the onset was explaining that Trim Technology is a serious and important matter, trying to encourage foundries to invest even in this part of the process. The context went through deep and positive changes in a matter of a few years, when I started off with the PR Studio and a few months later we were a small workshop with three employees, now we are the Pederzoli Group, we have a continuously expanding factory in Bedizzole, the extension of the office building in which we are right now was unveiled last week. As an entrepreneur, I like to point out that one of the main sources of satisfaction is that I never stopped investing in personnel and recruiting more employees to enhance the human capital, not even in objectively difficult situations such as the situation of economic and job crisis which began in 2008 and still leaves marks in our country. The company now employs about 70 persons, and it is run by me with the help of my daughter Federica, an engineering graduate, who takes care of the management, and my son Marco, in charge of the technical production area, while Ivano Scalvenzi is our Sales manager; in 2017 our sales revenues added up to more than 13 million euro, we export more than 75% of our production worldwide following the development cycle of the most demanding foundries in those areas where the automotive industry is most present, therefore with an evolved production of aluminium castings and components; in our specific segment, we are considered by trade operators as a precise reference point, we look mainly at the global market, but everything is born and comes to life here in Bedizzole”.

Which are your main reference markets?
Our globalization mission is a major, constant and typical element of our kind of activity, now more than ever it is a compulsory choice given the new global industrial centres and especially with the staggering increase in the production of aluminium alloy structural casting production for automotive uses. We export all over Europe, in the United States and neighbouring areas (Canada and Central America, especially Mexico) and in the more recently developed areas such as the Middle and Far East, China, India and South America. We have been the first to take care not only of the trimming and deburring of powertrain components such as engine blocks, basements, valve lids, transmission and steering carters, suspensions and so on, but also to tackle the development of structural castings, the most recent innovation in the field of aluminium components for the automotive industry, with a prospect of very high production volumes. We gradually planned the conditions to be able to tackle calmly the great global competitive market which typically characterizes foundry and die casting products and the automotive components market. Our clients include great global players supplying automotive castings and die casts, such as Nemak, KSM, Georg Fischer, ZF, Shiloh, Meridian, Magna, Martinrea, and the foundries of such car manufacturing companies as BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen and GM.

It is clear that in order to operate with sch great partners it is necessary to invest in equipment and knowledge, therefore with a constant engagement in technical research and development: what can you tell us about this?
Our corporate growth has been and is defined mainly by investment and support aimed at human resources, as well as by research and development to create dedicated trimming and mechanical machining plants and machines designed to work with latest-generation materials and aluminium alloys, but also capable of a rational machining of the item, combining in a sequence after trimming the mechanical machining operations. It is well known to everyone how crucial quality requirements are when it comes to first-level automotive parts, working by our standards means having tackled and solved very delicate issues regarding sizes, allowances, geometries and non-deformability, especially in the areas corresponding to the complex and extended casting junctions, so as to avoid, speaking bluntly, critical issues regarding cracks and breakages and therefore defects and scraps. It is not worth going into too much detail, but just as an example I would like to mention, regarding the structural castings we mentioned before, that for these complex items trimming and deburring must be complete; therefore the external and internal profiles and drill holes must be completely clean and free from casts, wells, vacuums and burrs. The final aim is to obtain machined and finished structural components which will not require any further processing, except possibly heat and straightening treatments. We reached this result some time ago with automated solutions with high technological content which allow to carry out during the die casting cycle not just trimming, but even mechanical machining, practically at no cost, a recovery of efficiency which brings the robotized die casting cell’s performances to new heights. We hardly need to add that given our production objectives and considering the level of the players we work with, the great attention we dedicate to the organization and management aspects is one of the fundamental aspects of our entire activity: for instance, we clearly divided competence areas by creating a Technical Office for Molds, a Technical Department for Machines, a CAM Office to program CNC work centres, while regarding technologies and technical resources, as well as a Mechanical machining division, we also have a Mold assembly and a Machine assembly division. These might sound like details, but it is only by paying attention to may such details that we derive the reliability which we attained on the global market.

How could we summarize in a few words your 35 years of growth and the forthcoming future outlook for the Pederzoli Group?
The years to come, even considering the great revolutionary changes which characterized the past few years, should still be positive for our production segment, therefore on our part all that is left for us to do is to follow the strategic choices which marked our development. Trust in our assets and in the possibility of improvement, deriving from the excellent knowledge of our line of business; awareness of our limits, utmost care in financial management, but bold and continuous investment in research, technical innovations, development of human resources and markets; living in the industrial realm exploiting associative, cultural, institutional synergies, with the outlook of larger companies, being convinced that by forming a system competitiveness may be optimized enormously. I tried to convey to everyone in the company and to put into practice these few concepts of sound management, I am sure that my daughter and son completely absorbed my thoughts, for this reason the generational change which has been going on for the past few years in the Pederzoli Group, is a smooth process, well-planned and full of sharing and synergies.