The competences of Somipress in the manufacturing of burners for gas household appliances allow the Marche company to support customers since the early design phases, to find the solution best suiting their requirements. The quality culture, developed in the company, enhances also human resources through training activities.
Creativity, technical expertise, technological innovation and design care: they are Somipress “ingredients” for a high-quality product. The company, with headquarters in central Italy, for over half century has designed and manufactured burners for gas household appliances (many of them protected by international patents), intended for several markets: from Europe to China, to North and South America. Along the years, it has enlarged its horizons crossing national borders and becoming a Group to overcome globalization challenges. Among its strong points, Somipress can boast the capability of going beyond the mere supply of a component, so succeeding in operating like a customer partner, searching for the best solution: as underlined by the President Armando Elisei, who explains how the quality culture concretizes in Somipress.
In addition to the household appliance sector, you supply also the automotive, a field that needs high qualitative standards: has the expertise gained in automotive been useful to bring innovation and quality in the ambit of household appliance components, too?
Certainly, it has. Working for the automotive has allowed us to gain broad know-how, because this field is very rigorous and attentive to quality. Somipress has obtained the IATF 16949:2016 certification, which attests quality in the ambit of the automotive industry and confirms our capability of manufacturing products that can satisfy severe requisites. This way of operating characterizes our whole activity, also the one inherent to household appliances, not anyway requesting this type of certification: it is anyway a competence heritage that strengthens our know-how. However, to produce with high qualitative standards, it is important not only to conform to a procedure, but also creating a quality culture in the company, generating awareness and involvement in the people who intervene in the production process. We have recently completed a training activity about the theme “what is the cause that determines the effect at technical-technological level”. Such initiative, addressing the whole staff engaged in production ambit, was conceived with the target of better informing about the process aimed at the product manufacturing, understanding its dynamics more in-depth. It is important this is clear also to those who work at manufacturing lines and this contributes in increasing the quality of what we produce.
What is the Made in Italy for Somipress?
Manufacturing in Italy means for us implementing with care and creativity products that are conceived by using expertise and advanced technological tools, for both design and implementation. Our Country has a great tradition regarding the kitchen and the household appliances that allow preparing dishes concretely: Made in Italy cooking appliances were born to perform at best an important function such as the food preparation.
Somipress has its headquarters in Italy but it is a Group with an international-scale ranking: how is it composed?
Close to the headquarters is located SomiDesign, which works at products where the aesthetical component is very important. The Group includes then Somipress Romania and the trading company Ningbo Somipress, which operates in China. Moreover, we rely on logistic warehouses in Australia, Germany and United States.
Do you export a vast part of your production?
Yes, around 85%. Outlet markets are mainly United States, South America, Europe and Asia, but we export to Australia and North Africa, too.
How is your relationship with customers structured?
We take great care of the customer relationship. We have worked together since the design phase to satisfy specific requirements. We are more than mere suppliers: our peculiarity is the proximity to customers since the design birth. We can both propose one of our ideas and work in co-design and jointly develop the product. We have a laboratory dedicated to design and we interface with companies of various sizes: from big Groups that want a customized product to smaller manufacturers, often specialized in household appliances with high esthetical content. Our competences allow us to manage the whole process since the initial stages: from the design to the implementation of the equipment and up to production. Due to this know-how, we can dialogue with customer companies’ technicians: we often organize some meetings with them, to finalize the design at best, in order to hit the target. We so determine a confidence relationship able to create the foundations for a relationship that consolidates in time.
Do you use forefront design tools?
Yes, we avail ourselves of simulation software that allow speeding up the design. However, these tools have been used by many companies by now. They are certainly useful but alone they are not enough to make the difference. The difference is made by the person who sets up and uses these tools. When we take care of complex projects, it is necessary to make some choices: expertise and competences are fundamental. Naturally, there must be a constant updating, which allows exploiting the systems that today the technology makes available.
In Somipress, is there a transfer of knowledge between the most expert staff and the younger one?
Yes, certainly. Our company is over fifty and this long history results in a heritage of competences that is at disposal of younger ones, too. A virtuous circle between propensity for innovation and historical know-how is so created.
Have you also an in-house toolshop for the die machining?
Yes, we have. The target is not satisfying 100% of our requirements but to be able to make tools for strategic projects directly inside the company. This allows us to make eventual changes in real time, enabling foundry and toolshop dialogue more easily each other, as they are internal departments. All this is framed inside our strategy that consists in the will of being the solution to the customer’s problem. To be able to do all this, we need to have the suitable conditions for supporting it since the beginning, when the problem emerges. I believe that having an in-house toolshop is a necessary tool to take care of customers in certain particular designs.
In cooking household appliances, aesthetics is an aspect that is becoming more and more important. Is burners’ design a relevant element in making a hob fine to the eye?
Yes, in my opinion. Besides, we are surveying similar opinions among customers, too: in the most recent designs, in fact, aesthetics is more important than some years ago. Moreover, not only the burner shape but also the flame is at stake, because fire has always been connected with emotional aspects and then linked with the product “pleasantness”.
Can your burners match efficiency and power?
Our products comply with the standards foreseen by regulations concerning CO2 emissions and efficiency. They are values that are measured and we are constantly committed to improving these parameters. We are also following the evolution of the research on hydrogen, although currently it is difficult to foresee how the situation concerning energy will proceed.
