Thursday, April 26, 2012

Looong winter... could not start better by visiting NovaRossi in Italy!


Visit to NovaRossi in Italy!
(Written by Wolfgang Lindner)

A couple of weeks ago I and Marcus got an offer from Klas Runesson at Hobby Produkter (Swedish distributor for NovaRossi) which we could not refuse….. J “Do you want to join me for a travel to NovaRossi in Italy?”. Well, you can imagine that we did not have to think too long! Actually, it took 0.1s and then we answered “YES!!”

NovaRossi HQ and Factory
So, off we went with Ryanair flight from Gothenburg Thursday 20th. Destination was Bergamo in Italy. NovaRossi HQ is located in Montecelli Brusati which is just 45km away from Bergamo Airport. We thought that we would meet the spring in Italy but the weather was really bad… L A lot of rain and thunderstorms. Well, you cannot get everything in life and this time we did not go to race so the rain was not a problem… J We picked up our rental car and headed towards our hotel.
Friday morning we drove over to NovaRossi and was welcomed by Mr NovaRossi himself, Cesare Rossi, his wife Graziosa Rossi and sales manager Malick  Diop.
From the beginning we felt us really welcome. Almost directly we went out in the factory for a “tour Grande” of the complete facility. We did see a lot, from raw materials, casting and all the processing up to finished engines. For obvious reasons we cannot show any photos but I can tell you that Mr. Rossi and Mr. Diop did an outstanding job showing us the different high precision machines, people manufacturing all the parts/assembling of engines. As you might imagine there are a lot of machines which are semi or full automated BUT also some high quality manual work done by the NovaRossi staff. We learnt that many of the 60 employees have been working +20 years for NR. The lady producing glow plugs has been with NovaRossi for 28 years and the gentleman mounting piston and conrod was doing his 38th year at NovaRossi. I believe that this shows the passion and loyalty to the company and the management team.
In today global world it is very common that companies outsource part of their business, like producing parts, to other companies in low cost countries. This is not the case at NovaRossi as almost 100% is made in house. From our understanding the only parts produced outside is the inner/outer ring for the engine main ball bearing and the balls. The assembly of the main ball bearing is then made in-house. The interesting thing is that Mr. Rossi himself takes part in the production! He checks the tolerances for the main ball bearings. I must say that I like this man. This is so very different from the corporate world I earn my living…. J
After the factory tour we got also a glimpse into the workshop where engines are breaked-in.  Mr Frederico Sala, engineer at NovaRossi, showed use the facility which is a rather small room, with simple but effective tools and fixtures. We had a rather interesting discussion about how to break in engines. I will not reveal any details but what I can say is that we, at least I, are too conservative when it comes to rpm and engine temperature….. J


Excellent lunch with amazing people

After the fantastic tour of the factory we went for lunch in a beautiful restaurant in the Italian country side. What a team of people there was round the table! Mr. and Mrs. Rossi, their daughter Erica, Mr. Columbini (NovaRossi distributor in Italy), Mr. Diop, Klas, Marcus and myself.
During the lunch we had a lot of interesting discussions about the development of the RC car sport from early days until now, where are we heading, what can be done to bring back the fun into the sport and, maybe most importantly, how to manage and handle the environmental areas (nitro, tire additives and more). It is interesting to hear that NovaRossi for a number of years have suggested to the governing bodies how to eliminate nitro and still have high performance engines. For me it is rather clear that governing bodies need not just to listen to RC industry companies, they need to setup cooperation to set the scene for the future!! Not sure if you all remember this but we did suggest to EFRA a new constitution 2009 which also covered the area how EFRA and RC industry should cooperate. I hope that will happen in the near future and I am still optimistic. Let us see…. :-)
We also talked about the challenge from the globalization of businesses around the world. More and more manufacturer moves the production to Asia to reduce the cost structure. We believe that NovaRossi will never do this because they have a very skilled and dedicated staff that has a tremendous knowledge. How can you replace that when moving somewhere else? I also get the feeling that NovaRossi sets high level of social responsibility for their employees who all live close to the factory. Maybe something for others companies to learn from….
After returning from a fantastic lunch the time was reserved for business discussion between NovaRossi and Hobby Produkter. As you might understand, I will not writing anything about those discussions here…. J
Time flies when you have fun and at 17:00 it was time for saying Good Bye to our new friends in Italy but before we went back to Bergamo in our super-duper 1,2L Ford Fiesta we had a photo session:
From left to right: Wolfgang, Klas, Malick Diop, Mrs. Rossi,
Marcus and Mr. Rossi 
It is really hard to put words on the feeling we had when leaving NovaRossi factory. As you probably understand from this report we were very, very pleased with our visit and the time Mr. and Mrs. Rossi, Malick Diop and NovaRossi staff spent with us. Imagine yourself; here you have the management team of the world leading engine manufacturer spending 7-8 hours with us during the visit. What can we say? Very, very impressive!!
The last night we changed hotel and moved into the center of Bergamo. This is a fascinating city with and old center really worth a visit. Excellent views, building and super good food.

We, Marcus, Klas and Wolfgang, hope to meet the great and dedicated people from NovaRossi soon!!

Until Next Time,
Ciao
Wolfgang, Marcus and Klas

No comments:

Post a Comment