Nothing but pasta could possibly be more representative of Italian sumptuousness than Ferrari, the sexy luxury race car brand that made its debut in 1947 with the 125S, produced in Maranello, Italy, and bearing the Ferrari trademark. Maranello, near the city of Modena, has been Ferrari’s home from the firm’s inception, and the main museum dedicated to the firm’s famous fast cars, as well as its assembly line and various factories are all situated there.The Ferrari museum, opened just more than a year after Enzo Ferrari’s death in 1990, gets over 200,000 visitors a year from all corners of the

Plastic may not be the most beloved of materials to the more environmentally minded, but Plast 2012, a Milan, Italy-based show held last week, aimed to mold a different opinion of the material in people's minds. "Plastic is a huge and innovating world," said Mario Maggiani, director at Assocomaplast, the association of Italian plastics and rubber machinery producers. Those innovations include processes like injection molding, extrusion of film, blow molding, and rotational molding, though the real steps forward are arguably being taken in material composition. "Biomaterials are becoming big in

With austerity abounding in Europe, two large trade fair companies have decided to combine their resources by partnering to create a new technical event to debut in May of 2014 that will showcase hydraulics, pneumatics and mechanical power transmissions and drive technology. An AssoFluid Association spokesman at the announcement adds,"that this sector needs an international platform and this should give us a leap forward in visibility." The show will debut in Milan at the Fieramilano exhibition center and will boast a completely "new format" every two years. The new is unprecedented with

I just arrived home after home after a ten-day visit to both manufacturing companies and manufacturing trade shows across Italy. Arranged by Machines Italia, as part of the Italian Trade Commission, I saw a variety of innovative products and production floors which I will write about over the next coming weeks. A few things struck me as belonging particularly to manufacturing in Italy. The foremost is everyone I met, including company presidents and trade association representatives, view themselves as artists. Manufacturing is an art in Italy. Custom-designed machines (as well as production

Matt Powell, Assistant Editor at Plant Magazine is amongst a group of nine Canadian and US journalists, from various business and Industrial publications, who are participating to a delegation in Italy to visit the The trade shows trifecta; FLUIDTRANS PLAST 2012 XYLEXPO, in Milano as well as LAMIERA Bologna. The delegation hosted by the Italian Trade Commissions of both Canada and the US, and Machines Italia, an initiative designed by the commission to promote Italian-made machinery and technology to manufacturers in North America. Follow Matt Powell's live feed of the events at: MATT POWELL

Machines Italia North America launched its online advertising campaign on several horizontal, industrial and general business websites and e-bullettins across Canada and the US. Amongst the targeted publications in the US: Designnews.com CNNMoney.com Businessweek.com/innovation Techbriefs.com While in Canada the chosen e-outlets were: Canadian Plant Canadian Manufacturing Frasers Design Engineering The banners featured on said sites, promote the website old.machinesitalia.org, The Italian Edge: Technology for Sustainability and its manufacturing awareness survey.

Brevini is a worldwide specialist in planetary technology. After 50 years of experience we developed a product range of gearboxes which goes from very small applications to >2,5 million N/m. We needed a new manufacturing location for the upper range (above 1 million N/M) where we could deploy the best possible technology. We focused on the wind market because it is one of the biggest for planetary applications. The US was, until two years ago, the biggest wind market in the world and there were plans for expanding the renewable sources ten folds by 2025. What a great chance for Brevini!!! We

As 2012 gets underway, manufacturers in a diverse number of sectors hope that improvements witnessed in 2011 will continue. One of the sectors that had shown signs of growth and optimism for that matter, over the first three quarters of 2011 was fluid power. Based on statistical information collected by the US Department of Commerce, the sector over the last several years, has witnessed a renewed interest from the downturn it experienced in the 2008-2009 recession. US imports within the fluid power sector amounted to $11,5 billion within the first nine months of 2011 - an increase of 33.58%

The machine tools index of orders has grown significantly with an increase of 58.2% in the third quarter 2011 compared to the period of July-September 2010. Giancarlo Losma, president of UCIMU states: “The excellent performance of foreign orders continues but the interesting data, emerging from this quarterly survey, is the awakening of domestic demand. The reversal in trend, in such an uncertain moment, gives positive hopes for the immediate future and is an excellent base from which to start off again after halt in capital goods investment in 2009”. The machine tools index of orders has