GIVI Magazine - Novembre 2016

ENGLISH TEXT With the help of Eros Paletti, in charge of Metaltek, we will take you inside the department where all metal parts of GIVI accessories are produced. H ello Eros, before getting down to business, tell us something about yourself. How old are you? Are you married? Children? “Hello GIVI Magazine. I’m a 39-year- old kid (at least that’s how I feel), I’ve been happily married for 11 years and I have a daughter, a little 9-year-old terror called Alessia.” Interests? Passions? Maybe even your greatest quality and defect. “When I was 15 my friends would go and play football while I was already taking apart, modifying and reassembling motorbikes in my basement. I then became a passionate bike tourer and afterwards I discovered the race track. Basically you are talking to a geek! I find the race track less dangerous than the road and great fun. Qualities and defects? It’s not easy to judge yourself. Other people tell me I easily get angry and I should learn to count to 10 first. But they also tell me I’m humble and generous towards people in difficulty.” How long have you been working in GIVI? “I started working in GIVI in 1992 at the age of 15. That was 24 years ago! At the time I had no experience but I had the will and humility I needed to learn a profession... and also that little ambition that has allowed me to be where I am now. Many friends think I have been lucky, that I was in the right place at the right time. I see it differently: I think opportunity presents itself at least once in everyone’s life. When I entered GIVI I felt that was my chance. Time proved me right. I’ve learned a lot here, and I still am. Three factors helped me along the way: my family, particularly my grandad, the luck of being taken on by a company that transformed a classic metalworking shop into a highly technological and robotised division. The third factor... Is my passion for bikes.” What do you do in Metaltek? By the way, we’re still talking of internal production, right? “Yes, Metaltek is GIVI’s exclusive production unit for all metalworking. Today, after a lot of hard work, I’ve worked my way up to directly managing the metal accessories production department.” So every fixing system or other metal product branded GIVI comes out of your department... Readers beware. If anything goes wrong now you know who to take it out on. Jokes aside, can you try and tell us what happens here? We are not talking of the typical department that bends, cuts and drills metal bars, right? “We started many years ago with typical metalworking of the kind ‘bend, cut, drill and trim’, but to stay up-to-date and give quality, design and service to our biker clients, we have invested a lot over the years in technology. I say ‘we’ (even if Mr Visenzi is the person who invested) because I live this production unit as if it were mine also. The traditional metalworking remains the same, but today everything is done with tools that look like they come from the future. We cut using lasers both for metal sheets and tubes. This allows us to be creative in order to improve design (holes, angle cuts, milling, connections between tubes of different diameters) because as we well know the motorbike is passion but also design, quality and safety. The pipe-bending machines are all CNC, exclusively electronic with constant angle control and 3D development. ‘Manual welding’ is now all done by robotic machines, controlled by humans but with incredible precision and unprecedented quality of the aesthetics and tightness of the welding. We have three welding areas and one for pipe bending with in-line processing after bending. So you work more with robots than with actual humans? Clearly all this technology would be useless without specialised staff and I must stress Specialised because each worker in the department is at the same time machinist and programmer. The fundamental thing for us is teamwork: understanding problems and solving them together immediately without postponing them.” And you witnessed first hand this technological advancement? “Practically from when I was hired to today. The first welding robot arrived here in 1992, and I was the first employee chosen to start with robotics.” Each new bike or scooter needs dedicated supports and accessories. The design process is internal or do you use external support? “Internally in the prototype zone collaborating with the technical department here at GIVI.” How much does the quality of the materials you use count? “It’s essential. More than any kind of technology. Let me explain: without high-quality materials, all the technology we have here today would be useless.” Thank you Eros for your time. INSIDE GIVI GOING TO THE TUNE OF METAL! captions 1) ABOVE: PREPARATION PHASE OF THE PRESS FOR A PLX COMPONENT AND QUALITY CONTROL OF ROBOT WELDING OF AN ENGINEGUARD. BELOW: SHEET BENDING WITH ANGLE CONTROL AND PROGRAMMING OF A MONORACK IN THE ROBOTIC WORK AREA WITH AN ELECTRIC PIPEBENDER, PRESS BRAKE, AUTOMATIC LOAD AND UNLOAD ROBOT. OVERVIEW PICTURE: PIECES READY TO BE WORKED BY THE PRESS BRAKE. 44  inside Givi