Like many medium-sized

engineering companies
Duplomatic SpA has been
pushed out of commodity
manufacturing and has to
innovate to survive, let alone
grow. John Bloomfield discovers how this Italian
company has met its challengers on several fronts
and is winning the day.

The company, Mr Pennetta tells us, is

still privately owned by its founding family,
though in recent years as it has increased
its global reach the family has been taking
a more arms length approach to management and has placed professional executives in all the key positions. We are in
transition as the company structures itself
for its future growth, he says.

Automation

ike many medium-sized engineering

companies Duplomatic SpA has
been pushed out of commodity manufacturing and has to innovate to survive,
let alone grow. John Bloomfield discovers
how this Italian company has met its challengers on several fronts and is winning
the day.
Eight dedicated and experienced people
who developed and produced a hydraulic
copying system for horizontal lathes
founded Duplomatic in 1952. It was revolutionary then and earned a global reputation for market leadership. Over 100,000
installations were made worldwide in the

36 Industry Europe

ensuing 40 years, until the birth of numerical control machines in the 1980s.
In the past 50 years, Duplomatic has
diversified its strategies and research to
satisfy its worldwide clients: the continuous technological evolution needed to be
one step ahead of competition and meet
market needs has made the company into
a highly active and dynamic partner for
machine tool manufacturers. The company
aims to guarantee top performance from
all its products, ranging from single components to the most complex systems.
Over the years Duplomatic has specialised
in various sectors but especially automatic

turrets, driven tool devices, components,

hydraulic plants and servo systems.
Duplomatic today has developed
into the four companies comprising
the Idroma group, but until March this
year there were only three: Duplomatic
Automation, Duplomatic Hydraulics
and Delta 2, a company specialising in
hydraulic service. The addition was the
official launch of Duplomatic Shanghai
Trading. Annibale Pennetta, marketing
director of Duplomatic Automation, talked
to us about Duplomatics aspirations in
China and specialised machining turrets
that are his divisions core product.

That growth has been impressive. In 2005

the automation division invoiced about
17 million, 15 per cent more than in 2004
and the second of two outstanding years
thanks to good market conditions. In 2006
he expects to achieve a more modest
growth with 90 per cent of the automation
divisions sales made direct to the machine
tool manufacturers.
We service a niche within a niche,
Pennetta explains. Our product is used
only on CNC turning centres. There are only
a few hundred of these, from Cincinnati in
the USA to smaller producers in Italy,
Germany and Japan. The only way we can
grow is to gain market share from our competitors, through general market growth
or when our existing customers bring out
a new line.
Duplomatics market share in the higher
volume entry-level product is declining, says
Pennetta. Growth in the future will come
for high-end and innovative products

manufactured in lower volumes, he says.

We were one of the first companies to
introduce servo-motor turrets in the mid
1990s and also driven-tool systems that
gave these lathes a milling function. This
is technology that is very widely used in
Europe now and is growing a lot in countries such as Taiwan and Korea, which are
finding it difficult to compete with China at
entry level.
Duplomatic is being pushed up the value
chain and has been focusing on systems
for multifunctional turning centres, that are
a hybrid of lathes and machining centres.
We are talking about machines that can
handle machine tool applications, but with
a focus on turning capability. This is how
we have segmented our product the greater
the functionality of our turrets the more
we can offer the market, says Pennetta.
Duplomatic began to sell in China in the
early 1990s, but sporadically. It was not until
1998 that it began to appoint agents and
distributors in China and since 1999 has
worked with a single partner. This made a
great difference, observes Pennetta,
making Duplomatic the biggest European
supplier of turrets in China. We cant
compete with the local Asian manufacturers
yet, but as a European supplier I think we
have really made our mark.
The new Shanghai office will give technical
support to Duplomatics customers who
import lathes. The objective is to give them

the first aid they need to reduce downtime on their machines and to provide the
sort of technical support and training we
like to provide all over the world. Training
has been a speciality of Duplomatic since
its earliest days. We go to our Italian OEM
customers at least monthly and go to the
end-users too. In the USA we train the
people at Ford, General Motors and
Chrysler sites in handling our turrets.
Manufacturing in China is an open question, he continues. At present he is just
pleased to have completed this important
step. It will help penetrate the Chinese
market and be a base to extend support to
the provinces, and will help Duplomatics
relationship with important European customers such as the German DMG group,
which established its first production plant
outside Europe in Shanghai in 2002.
Duplomatic recently entered a partnership
agreement with DMG that represents
something of a breakthrough with a customer
that until three years ago sourced nothing
outside Germany.

Reliability over speed

Duplomatic today focuses on new technology to meet changing customer demands.
Faster and faster speeds used to be what
drove R&D in the 1990s, says Pennetta,
but speed has been replaced by reliability.
Speed is no longer a priority because
what they would gain in quantity would be
Industry Europe 37

lost in quality. We are focusing in our R&D

on developing turrets that have higher
reliability than today and that will be to the
advantage of our customers.
This change has been reflected in
Duplomatic Automations manufacturing
processes, a key issue in Pennettas eyes.
In the past our operations focused on
large quantities, with limited numbers of
turret models. Now customers need a variety
of turrets for different lathes and customised
solutions are the thing. That is why we need

38 Industry Europe

to be flexible. So we have specialised our

manufacturing by investing in new flexible
Mazak double head machining and
upgrading our grinding operations.
Lean manufacturing is another current
focus much of the non-strategic work
has been outsourced, he says. Its not
only hardware, it is also continuous
product and process improvement. We
have regular meetings involving different
departments, bringing in sales and service
people wherever possible. That brings

experience gained in the market back into

the factory and helps identify where design
improvement or change might be possible.

Hydraulics division
Automation has evolved over the years,
but the Hydraulics Division dates back to
the first products of the company a
copying system used to retrofit manual
lathes to make them into automatic lathes.
This product is still basically a hydraulic
valve, says Duplomatic Hydraulics marketing

director Roberto Minetti. The first hydraulic

activity supported our core activity, which
was production of these copying devices.
Then we started to produce small hydraulic
power units to power this device.
Today Duplomatic Hydraulics makes
components, valves and systems for
machine tools, CNC presses and cutting
machines. The division is a little different
from Automation in that it only sells to OEMs
in its home market, relying on distributors
to service customers outside Italy, most of
them in other European countries, though
China is again a major focus.
The new office will represent both divisions, despite the fact that they have few
synergies in either marketing or production
although it is on the same site manufacturing operations are kept entirely sepa-

rate. China and the USA are the only export

markets where Duplomatic Hydraulics
deals direct with OEMs, says Minetti. We
tend to have a purchaser profile similar to
the domestic one and now we have our
own representative office in both.
In 2005 the hydraulics division achieved
a turnover of 19.95 million. The average
growth over the last seven years has been
around 10 per cent, says Minetti. We plan
to accelerate this growth to around 15 per
cent over the next 10 years. This will be done
partly by introducing new products and a
different portfolio.
In recent years we have developed hitech products that have brought hydraulics
and electronics together and given us an
edge against the competition and will
increase our market share. But we are also

gaining new customers, mainly in the

growing economies. In Europe we will basically consolidate our position, but the new
markets like China, eastern Europe and
the Middle East are growing strongly for us.
As with automation, technology is driving
the hydraulics applications. Proportional
valves that control not only the directional
movement of the cutting head but also its
speed, acceleration and precise positioning
are the fastest-growing product area. The
companys research team has taken a proactive stance in developing these products,
identifying suitable customer applications
and developing targeted solutions for them.
Hydraulics and electronics have long
been the two main elements of motion
and control, which is an industry dominated by electromechanical devices,
says Minetti. Basically there are some
applications where hydraulics cant be
replaced, where you need a lot of force
and a lot of flexibility in a small space.
And electromechanical systems are more
expensive hydraulics are often very
cost effective.
However, over the last 15 years,
hydraulics expertise has been lost, so if
you want to produce a hydraulics systems that work for the customer you have
to make them act like electromagnetic
components. The idea is to have an integrated plug-and-play component that
contains within it all the important electronic features.
Industry Europe 39

CUTTING EDGE MACHINES

Drawing on a long tradition of superior engineering, TOS VARNSDORF a.s., a leading Czech producer
of horizontal machines, tops the world. Janusz Mondry reports.

Plans for improvement

Though it serves a different market,
Duplomatic Hydraulics is facing changing
customer demands and this requires nothing
less than a radical change of culture, says
Minetti. We are working toward a lean
organisation. Our strategy is to outsource
as much as we can, while keeping the
knowledge in our hands.
One hundred per cent of Duplomatics
products are tested on the companys
facilities before they are shipped.
Manufacturing, administrative and financial operations are managed by a new
ERP system that was implemented at the
end of 2005. Again, says Roberto
Minetti, there is no longer a predictable
demand for volume products, so the factory has had to become highly flexible and
efficient. The customers want reduced
lead time so we have to do the same thing
in a shorter time.
These measures are part of a long-term
plan to restore the clout of the Duplomatic
name. It is a well-known and respected
40 Industry Europe

name in machine tools, but has slightly

lost its strength in hydraulics. We did some
advertising and stepped up direct contacts
with our customers. That was the first
phase and we are now in the second, which
is to completely renew our range of products, giving them the kind of technological
edge we have been talking about. I think
we have raised the profile of the
Duplomatic name and succeeded in
showing that we are serious in sticking to
our commitments. We are a people
company and we like to have a
personal approach to our customers.
In both the automation
and hydraulics

segments, Duplomatic looks on itself as

occupying the top of the world class and
it will undoubtedly be sought out in China
by customers who need this sort of
quality as it is now becoming valued
in that most exacting of machine tool
markets, Germany.

ounded in 1903, TOS VARNSDORF a.s.

ranks among the world leading manufacturers of metal working machines
and is widely recognised for its state-of-theart horizontal machining centres. TOS
VARNSDORFs machines, mills and related
products are known for their high performance, progressive design, forward looking
technical solutions and reliability.
The company benefits from its long tradition of superior know-how and unmatched
engineering experience to compete successfully in the most demanding markets
worldwide. Since its privatisation in 1995,
It ranks among the most successful and
dynamically developing engineering companies in the Czech Republic, with
exports constituting the bulk of its revenue. Last year it sold 44 million worth
of products, becoming the worlds top
producer and supplier of horizontal
machining centres, according to managing director Miroslav Biciste.

Long history of success

The roots of the companys foundation stretch
back to the period of intensive industrialisation in Czech lands starting in the mid

19th century. The rapid development of

the textile industry in north-western
Bohemia prompted the development of
machine and metal working industries, with
many foundries and machinery works being
set up in the 1980s. One of the first was
the North Bohemia Metalworking Works,
founded by Otto Petschke who was later
joined by an ambitious entrepreneur, Arno
Plauert, who eventually took over the whole
factory and named it after himself.
In addition to metalworking, the Plauert
factory started the licensed production of
steam pumps as well as venturing into
automotive production, but without much
success. The most successful development occurred in the core business of
metal cutting, with the development and
construction of modern machining and
production techniques.
In the 1920s, with the rising demand for
metalworking machine tools, the company
started manufacturing products which were
capable of competing with Germany and
the USA, as well as selling to USSR where
demand was growing rapidly. It was at this
time that the production of horizontal drilling
machines was started, setting the course

for future market and exports growth.

In 1949, the company was nationalised
and re-launched as the independent national
enterprise TOS VARNSDORF n.p. During
the construction boom in the 1960s and
1970s, it grew to become a leading producer and supplier of horizontal machines
in Czechoslovakia, constantly innovating
its production techniques. Benefiting from
its superior technical know-how, it had
already established itself as a recognised
world player before its privatisation in 1995.

Smart business strategy

The companys strong performance at
home and in the world markets owes much
to its superior know-how and product
quality, but also to its good management
skills. A smart business strategy has been
at the heart of its successful development
right from its inception. Unlike some other
post-communist companies, Czech producers are thriving in free market conditions; this is illustrated by the success of
TOS after its privatisation.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the company
turned its attention to making exports a
top priority. In the 1990s, only 10 per cent
Industry Europe 41