Page 20 - Machines Italia Vol. XIII Next Generation Manufacturing

HEAVY-DUTY MACHINERY
“They’ve got some really good employees,” he said. “Northern Italy has an awesome workforce ... very motivated, highly educated and their loyalty is just amazing.”
Early on in its history, Fantini decided to use the best components it could afford to make a first-class product. As a result, its headers have a four-year warranty on their drivelines, a guarantee that’s un- heard of in farm equipment, Hatloy said.
These headers are also energy efficient.
For example, the gearboxes require 13-17% less power per row than Fantini’s closest competitor, said Hatloy. “When you’re talking about machines that can burn 30-40 gallons per hour of diesel fuel, if you can decrease your power consumption by 17% that’s a big deal,” he said.
Not only are the headers energy efficient, their electronics—in- cluding row guidance sensors and header height control—are a boon to operator comfort. “So, the header is steering the combine and is also adjusting the height off the ground and it makes operating the combine so much easier,” said Hatloy. “It takes a lot of stress off. It frees up your hands for other controls (e.g., adjusting speed). It frees up your eyes to look out for mud holes and rocks.”
While Fantini makes separate headers for corn and sunflowers, the sunflower header can also be used for sorghum harvesting. As an example of Fantini’s quality, the cutting discs on the L4 corn har- vest header are made with tungsten carbide steel knives that work at 3,200 rpm to ensure superior chopping.
The company also makes a sunflower kit that can be attached to the corn header, but that’s more for a grower who puts just a small percentage of his farm into sunflowers, Hatloy said.
Fantini’s corn and sunflower headers have a four-year warranty on their drivelines, a length of time that’s said to be unheard of in farm equipment.
The 9,000 square meter (29,528 square foot) factory and 4,000 square meter (13,123 square foot) spare parts and semi-finished com- ponents in its Medole, Italy warehouse are expected to turn out about 700 headers this year, leaving room to grow production. In addition to Fantini headers, Hamilton sells conveyors, seed tenders, bulk han- dling systems, seed treatment systems and pickups. The company also designs and builds commercial and private seed sites.
Fantini is a member of FEDERUNACOMA (Rome, Italy, www. federunacoma.it/en), the Italian association for agriculture and farm machinery.
Another member of FEDERUNACOMA, Bondioli & Pavesi (Suz- zara, Italy; www.bondioli-pavesi.com/), was awarded the new Sys- tems & Components Trophy—Engineers’ Choice in November 2019 for its mechatronic, continuously variable transmission (CVT) unit at
Bondioli & Pavesi wins award for its CVT unit.
the Agritechnica trade show in Hannover, Germany. The CVT is a compact mechatronic unit that can be applied on drawbars and is suitable for all applications with a requirement to continuously adapt the speed of an implement to different working conditions.
Woodworking technology fit for a president
Italian technology shows its prowess not only in the fields, but in fine woodworking derived from forests as well. But for a friend’s investment and an ex-President who’s a DIY-er, Riccardo Azzoni may never have played a part in familiarizing America with the fine engi- neering of Italian woodworking machinery.
It was 1980, and Azzoni’s friend had sunk money into Zinken Itali- ana, former manufacturer of a versatile woodworking machine for the home hobbyist that did joining, planing, sawing, drilling and mortic- ing. Azzoni, who at the time worked for a plywood importer in Stam- ford, CT, looked, at least in his investor friend’s eyes, to be perfectly positioned to help market the five-in-one technology.
The friends hatched a plan and paired up with the Italian wood- working technology association (ACIMALL, Assago, Italy, www. acimall.com/en/) to donate a Zinken to President Jimmy Carter, a home woodworker of some skill, and the business took off with the publicity that resulted. Azzoni eventually quit his job and devoted himself full-time to selling Zinken, then went on to sell for assorted other Italian industrial woodworking machines through his company, Atlantic Machinery Corporation (New Milford, Connecticut, USA, www.atlanticmach.com), where he’s president.
One of those industrial woodworking brands that is going strong is Vitap Costruzioni Meccaniche S.p.A (Poggibonsi, Italy, www.vi- tap.it), a manufacturer of boring machines, edge banders, CNC ma- chine tools, hole drilling machines for acoustic tiles, and other unique
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