The Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera” published an article listing 20 companies located in the Brescia area that have their registered office in the U.S.. Porta Solutions was on that list, along with some of its customers.

The list was probably prepared by contacting the Italian Ministry of Economic or Foreign Affairs, since it refers to those Brescia-based companies with REGISTERED OFFICE in North America and operate, directly and indirectly, through local agents, just like many other companies do.

PORTA SOLUTIONS IS THE ONLY BRESCIA-BASED MANUFACTURER WITH THEIR REGISTERED OFFICE IN THE U.S.

In 2000, I moved to Connecticut with my family to open a company operating under U.S. law called PORTA NORTH AMERICA INC.

Today, after 17 years, I can say, with pride, that the efforts at that time have largely repaid the two years, invested in making this office able to work independently.

THE PERSONNEL AT PORTA NORTH AMERICA INC. ARE 100% AMERICAN

Today, PORTA NORTH AMERICA INC. has an all-American staff consisting of a General Manager, a Sales Director, as well as Product Applications personnel who draw up all the offers in North America.

In fact, these offers are prepared by the office personnel, in terms of work cycles, cycle times and relevant commercial offers. PORTA NORTH AMERICA INC. is independent not only from a sales-technical standpoint, but also in terms of Service.

Porta North America service technicians are on call 24 hours a day at a dedicated telephone number- The spare parts warehouse located in the U.S. has a value of over one million dollars, with all materials stored in Connecticut, linked to the TELESERVICE, which ensures via a web connection the monitoring of the machines installed at the customers’ facilities.

Our presence in the U.S. dates back to the end of the 1970s, when my father started up a joint venture, which lasted until 2000, with the company who was the market leader of that time: GOSS&DELEEUW.

This agreement was signed in Geneva.

In the early 1990s, I attended an American college called ALBERTUS MAGNUS COLLEGE, in New Haven, Connecticut.

I remember the frequent visits to the facilities of GOSS&DELEEUW to watch certain PORTA machines being built; in some way they reminded me of home.

During this long joint venture, we have assembled PORTA machines for many years at the GOSS&DELEEUW facilities.

These machines were marketed under the name GOSS/PORTA.

WE ARE THE COMPANY WITH THE MOST EXPERIENCE ON THE AMERICAN MARKET

The U.S. experience has resulted in a huge growth.

The largest number of systems are installed in the automotive department, and it was precisely from this sector that, thirty years ago, we learned the most important manufacturing concepts due to the high level of competitiveness requested of our company.

No one will be surprised if I say that the American market is the most competitive market in the world: on this battlefield, the best manufacturers of machine tools, German, Japanese, Swiss just to mention a few, fight it out.

Today, PORTA NORTH AMERICA INC., after 17 years of doing business directly, operates on the American market by importing products made by two other companies located in the area of Brescia: SALA Macchine Utensili, not only for ball processing, but in particular for the linear motors machine with opposing spindles for precision production turning applications.

This machine competes directly with multi-spindle equipment such as INDEX and SCHUTTE.

The second Brescia-based company, called MECOLPRESS, produces heat forming presses, in addition to traditional presses.

Recently, the company has also launched hydraulic and electric presses, fully CNC.

These two companies also made the technical-commercial service and 24-hour a day assistance the strength with which to penetrate the American market.

This American experience led us to discover, many years ago, the concept of lean manufacturing.

Later on, around the 1990s, we were also the first to find out what the W.C.M.* concept meant in the automotive world.

*W.C.M (Wikipedia) stands for “World Class Manufacturing”, a program that qualifies the most important carmakers and providers of automotive services in the world.

TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) methodology, Lean Manufacturing logic and Total Quality Management have been integrated to form the underpinnings of the W.C.M (World Class Manufacturing) which, although based on many TPM/TQM concepts, it distinguishes itself from them since, at the basis of the choice of strategies and “critical” systems (in jargon known as “to be attacked”), there is the concept of Cost Deployment.

This means that the work group deals with problems, whether of a maintenance, logistical, quality, safety, organisational, workplace, or organisational nature, based on their economic weight.

The activities of all teams are aimed at the development of projects (called Kaizen) with the following objectives: zero defects, zero failures, zero waste and zero stock, for a general reduction of plant costs.

This new method is spreading within those companies that want to control and reduce production costs in a systemic manner and through referable and objective methods.

The WCM strategy was developed in the early 1990s in the United States, and reached Italy around 2005 when it was implemented at the FIAT Group, where it is considered to be one of the main reasons for the Group’s recent positive turn.

All this has helped us to grow and design increasingly flexible machines suited to this type of environment, completed by Preventive Maintenance services for better integration in the automotive world.

This turned out to be a winning choice because, at present, it is not just the carmakers that have set objectives like zero defects, zero failures, zero waste and zero stock, for a general reduction of plant costs.

Other sectors are also forced to implement this way of operating if they want to stay in business, as the market is putting those companies that are not willing to change with their backs to the wall.

To immediately download the list, published on Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera”, of 20 companies located in the Brescia area that have their registered office in the U.S., write your e-mail address and click below.

Maurizio Porta
Expert in Flexible Production