Upgrading and sustainability are the keywords of GUSBI, the Vigevano-based company specialized in the production of industrial plants for polyurethane molding addressed to the footwear sector and beyond
“Finally, at the fair. Returning to Simac Tanning Tech was a duty and an indispensable reaction to give a strong signal to restart, waiting any longer would have entailed the risk of encountering new uncertainties about the future.” Irene Bianchi, Gusbi’s Sales Department manager, has clear ideas about the need to meet customers again, aiming at further establish the company among competitors. “We were prepared to suffer a flop, instead there was no lack of visits, especially from European and North African customers. The South American and US customers are still suffering from travel restrictions. We will compensate for their absence by trying to set up online meetings, as already happened during the lockdowns.”
As usual, Gusbi has set up a representative stand: “Bringing the machinery would have been too complicated,” continues Irene. “The digital tools allow us to illustrate the main features properly. After all, once commissioned, our industrial plants for polyurethane molding are built to meet individual needs. This makes them open to constant improvement.” Product and process innovation is on the agenda in the Vigevano company: for each project it is decided what can and has still to be done to improve, step by step useful details and upgrading solutions are added in a constant dialogue between customer and supplier.
Sustainability also falls within this vision. “We were among the first machinery and equipment suppliers for the fashion industry to obtain the Green Tag promoted by Assomac, – underlines Ms. Bianchi – the internationally recognized certification system on the technologies’ energy-environmental performance, resulting from our seek for consumption reduction, a topic we put at the center of the production process. As manufacturers of polyurethane molding machines, we try to cooperate together with those chemical companies working on raw materials and additives for the production of polyurethane according to sustainability criteria.
Teamwork is also expressed through the twenty-year collaboration with Autec Automation. “We are an established partner and we almost build up a single company with the Tuscan corporate, specialized in robotics,” concludes Irene. “Autec supplies the entire automation line studied and designed on our machines. In this way we are able to satisfy, with a state-of- the-art product of the highest quality, even that target market that requires complete automation.”
Gusbi’s role in Confindustria Moda
Sales Department manager and third generation of the family-run business established in 1946 in Vigevano, one of the most ancient Lombardy-based industrial districts in the Fashion System, Irene Bianchi is ASSOMAC council member as well as representant of the Association (together with the vice chairman, Cristiano Paccagnella – Omac) for the new Confindustria Moda’s Education Committee. The recently launched project aims at putting in the limelight an emergency, that is, the youths’ training in the professions required by the fashion supply chain, a necessary endeavour in order to ensure the future of Italian manufacturing and its excellence. “Together with the associations of the textile, fashion and accessories sector supporting Confindustria Moda, ASSOMAC will help create suitable profiles for the new needs of the fashion industry,” explained Irene Bianchi. “More specifically, ASSOMAC’s task lies in encouraging young people to study and train so as to fill specialized technical positions, a link between machinery manufacturers and enterprises operating in the footwear, leatherware and tanning industries. The first step concerns the communication with technical institutes and vocational schools. There is a marked gap between the education and the business world, given that, usually, students looking for careers, know nothing about our companies. Hence it is necessary that the segments of the supply chain join forces so as to provide youths approaching the labour market with all the opportunities guaranteed by the SMEs in the fashion sector.”
As ASSOMAC’s spokesperson, Irene Bianchi attended the first edition of Fashion Talent Days, the event launched by Confindustria Moda last November to draw attention to the topic revolving around education and the search for the professional figures the sector is going to need more and more in the upcoming future.