Some people are sort of programmed to see the whole puzzle before it’s been assembled. They simply think big with an eye for details. These professionals fuel innovation and progress in every sector and their opinion is essential, but often little-known. That’s why the topic is so interesting, particularly when it comes to the mechano-textile world. And Biancalani has belonged to this sector for decades.
“We often forget”, says Mr. Massimo Biancalani, CEO of the company “that innovation can be a complex, multifaceted process. Biancalani has made a very specific choice, which is to get a position as producer of alternative textile finishing machinery. The so-called input, the spark in the creative process, always comes from a question: what does the mechano-textile sector lacks but could be really really desirable and beneficial?”
“That’s what happened with AQUARIA®”, Maurizio Toccafondi, R&D Manager, adds. “We were looking for a different view, something based on tradition and experience of course, but not trivial. Well, the result has been incredible: we managed to squeeze six points of force in a single machine, so to produce an alternative textile avant-garde. And obviously, it yields incredible results, some of them well-known and others all to be discovered.
“You could label the research phase as maniacal”, explains Massimo Biancalani “but the correct term here is punctual because we are talking about the foundations of the design process. Opinions and data come from external collaborators, professionals, market analysis, statistics, the Internet and all is collected by the R&D department. These multifaceted impulses trigger the design process. Technicians at Biancalani are very good at grasping the right details and that’s one of the reasons why the company recruited them”.
“The design process is totally participative, there’s a continuous discussion in order to make the research phase work”, says Mr. Toccafondi. “It’s a daily brainstorming. You must forget formal timing marked by meetings that are only a tiny part of the whole thing. After a meeting, you don’t hold the ultimate design truth in your hands, you are just more informed and ready to change tack, if necessary. And often, it is necessary. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a design phase.”
The R&D Manager wants to make a point: “The design process must not let technological risks be an option, which happens with what we call poor machinery. If you cut to the bone during the design and productive processes, you’ll end up producing supposedly groundbreaking machineries, deprived of meaning. That’s a huge mistake. The technological content comes first. Every successful R&D bear this in mind”.
“The actual design part”, Mr. Biancalani says, “the technical phase I mean, is sort of a creative synthetizing. Ideas start coming and start being shared in a totally free and continuous exchange of views. Biancalani has been gathering professionals of different age, background and specialization and their constructive dialogue has brought to such machineries as AIRO®24, AIRBOX and AQUARIA®”.
“We are not talking about conventional, average textile machinery. And you feel proud you contributed to achieve such goals”, adds Mr. Toccafondi.
He goes on to say: “let’s say you have developed the machine. Now there’s another interesting step: the company becomes a consultant for the client, often their sole provider and obviously a strong promoter of a certain design philosophy. Biancalani is a strategical partner at this point. The top level is reached when clients who are leaders in the textile finishing sector choose to test an innovative machinery”.
Mr. Biancalani adds: “that’s when we provide our technicians, who work in order to set every detail according to the client’s needs and also to find out which specific machinery features can give outstanding results. This is the real link between our work and innovation, as the industry leaders pave the way for others. And others will follow the path.”
“Biancalani customizes machineries according to what the client asks. I have no memory of developing a machinery that was identical to another one”, Mr. Toccafondi claims.
“Each machinery has an actual potential”, adds Mr. Biancalani. “Half of that potential is well-known and half of it is to be discovered. And know what, some of the most important discoveries have been made while looking for something else, i.e., studying the machinery potential together with the client, in our case. Potential versatility is the real secret of textile finishing machinery by Biancalani. And of course, of our job.”