Gears: are small and medium series always a disadvantage?

giugno 16, 2021

It is often believed that working on a small scale is not very profitable or disadvantageous, but in reality it is not always said, especially in the field of gears where the projects are varied and fruitful. Many times manufacturers are well integrated into a network of other small and medium-sized companies highly specialized in a type of machining for which they have a wide range of machine tools. This allows you to rely on precise costs to be included in the offer, production times and partners with highly specialized technical skills so as to be able to tackle different projects. In addition, all products are tested after each external phase, therefore safe. By doing so, during the sampling it is possible to test the entire life cycle of the product.

The crisis of the hyper-verticalization model

As we all know, at the beginning of the last century the Fordist model was established as extremely innovative and efficient. It made it possible to produce massively and economically but forced the largest companies to organize themselves in an extremely vertical way. This means that they had a well-defined production capacity internally, dictated by the range of machine tools in the workshop and by the products in the price list. The supply chain was not as indispensable as it is today, because it was only used to develop projects that were difficult to achieve with internal machines alone. Despite this, the first small companies specialized in certain types of production began to arise, the management was familiar and their strong point was the extreme technical knowledge of a specific process. The advantage was to have flexible production and consequently the possibility of developing innovative projects.

In recent years, most Italian companies in the mechanical sector have understood that to develop it is important to have skills and not just a low-skilled workforce. Given the difficulty of the projects that each of us currently has to develop on a daily basis, it is very complex to think that a company can have all the necessary skills internally to complete them in the best possible way. Here it becomes necessary to merge the vertical structure model with the more flexible and collaborative model with sub-suppliers.

How mass production has changed: from Ford to today

The Fordist American model asserted itself as pioneering in a period in which massive industrial production was still a long way off. Today, more than a century later, it is anachronistic to think that one can follow this model slavishly. Serial production is still very predominant, but it always accompanies the research and development of new projects. As part of the production of gears, starting from the 1970s, there has been an emergence of small specialized companies whose founders came directly from the large companies in the area. Also G.S.I. started like this, mass production was no longer enough, we had to specialize. The focus is on quality which becomes preponderant over quantity. This principle is still valid, in addition to staying on track, alongside the competition it is necessary to give added value to the customer through a strong know-how for the development of the project, the prototype and the small and medium series.

So is it always disadvantageous to have a small or medium-sized production?

In G.S.I. we believe that having a small or medium-sized production guarantees the possibility of keeping up with the market and becoming a reliable partner. There are many challenges in activating various new projects, from technical analysis to assist the customer, to industrialization of the product, to sampling, in which it is verified that all the technical analyzes previously carried out are respected or refine them to be ready during the series. . Having flexible machines that can handle a wide range of products and adequate technical knowledge is a double-edged sword, because it is necessary to have and maintain a structure that easily adapts to different requests. In G.S.I. we have the aspiration of not being a mere manufacturer of gears, but a solution provider for small or medium series projects. To request a feasibility study and develop your project, contact us.

Gears: are small and medium series always a disadvantage?

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