FEDERTEC Is Here, Striking Out for Change
The specially convened joint assembly of ASSIOT and ASSOFLUID on January 23rd gave rise to the birth of FEDERTEC, a new association bringing the two previous entities together under one roof and guaranteeing an even more effective voice for the Italian power and motion transmission industries. In light of the elective assembly to take place in June this year, the statute was presented and temporary positions within the federation were defined.
by Fabrizio Dalle Nogare
Strength in numbers, in this case, the numbers are leading to effective change, which, as always is the case with change, will require time to be digested and bring about the positive results expected from it.
What counts more than anything else is that the assembly on January 23rd confirmed the birth of the new federation FEDERTEC, which, once the red tape has been dealt with, will bring together under one banner, the ASSIOT and ASSOFLUID associations. These are two historical (ASSOFLUID has just celebrated its 50th birthday while ASSIOT was founded in December 1971) and well established bodies whose combined turnover touched on €12 billion in 2018.
The reasons behind the merger
“It is a question of following market changes”, said Domenico Di Monte, president of ASSOFLUID, who opened the assembly with Assunta Galbiati, ASSIOT president. “It is increasingly clear, that the growth of transversal markets also requires expansion in operative supply. Integration today is no longer based on product, as it was in the past, but technology and skills”. The fundamental goal is, exactly that, to strengthen the association’s grass roots appeal, with a more open, integrated and collaborative dialogue not only with authorities, academia and decision makers but also with all those who can be considered part of the wider process chain. The vision of the two presidents is that the newly born association must go beyond the simple summing of the two previous bodies, creating new and commonly shared structures, resources and projects that will bring ever more involvement from the companies making up membership.
“The bigger we are – said Di Monte in his summing up – the easier it will be to create effective representation”.
The next steps and the positions taken up until official assembly elections
During the assembly – where formal approval of the merger took place, based on the previous, board approved project, in October – the FEDERTEC statute was illustrated in detail. Its aim is to “Co-ordinate, protect and promote the technical and economic interests of the Italian industrial sectors in components, mechatronic fluid power, power transmission control and digital automation of product and process.”
As we wait for the elective assembly to take place in June, temporary positions have been filled by representatives of the two associations. During this transitional phase, the FEDERTEC presidency has been conferred on Professor Mario Bocciolone, director of the Department of Mechanics at the Politecnico University in Milan, who underlined that “As in industry, the time for closed departments lacking a culture of skill sharing, has finished inside university halls as well. Today, campuses cannot exist without relationships with business. I firmly believe in the FEDERTEC project, and am convinced that it will become a key player in the Italian industrial panorama.”