Italian machine tools orders keep growing

By Niraj M Wanikar, Chief Editor, CNCTimes.com, 2017-10-24 14:00:00

The index of machine tool orders keeps growing, as highlighted by the Studies Dept. & Business Culture of UCIMU-SISTEMI PER PRODURRE: in the third quarter of 2017, it recorded a 14.7% increase compared with the same period of the previous year. The absolute value of the index was 109 (basis 2010=100).

The rise was mainly due to the excellent trend of the orders collected by the Italian manufacturers in the domestic market, grown by 68.2% compared with the period July-September 2016. The absolute value of the index amounted to 66.1. To find such a strong increase, we should go back to 2011, when the upturn was 96.7%, but the absolute value was not over 48.4.

Even the index of foreign orders registered a growth, showing a +1% compared with the third quarter of the previous year, with an absolute value of 114.6.

As a testimony to the excellent economic period characterising the Italian manufacturing industry, there is also a positive trend of applications to participate in the next BI-MU: the trade show will take place at Fieramilano Rho in October 2018 and will have renewed format and an updated and wider technological index of products. Actually, a large number of applications to take part in the Biennial Machine Tool Exhibition have already been received by the organizers. For its 31^st edition, BI-MU will present, besides manufacturing systems and machines, a varied and comprehensive supply offering of digital systems and technologies for the interconnection of industrial plants and machines.

“These data – stressed Massimo Carboniero, President of UCIMU-SISTEMI PER PRODURRE – attest to the liveliness of the Italian market and, at the same time, to the effectiveness of the incentives implemented by the National Plan Industry 4.0, which perfectly meets the requirements for industrial plant modernisation and for the introduction of the digitalisation and interconnection principles that are necessary for the Italian manufacturing industry to remain competitive”.

“With the new solutions developed over the last months, which increasingly take advantage of technologies related to Industry 4.0, the Italian manufacturers are proud to contribute to the evolution of the technological level in the manufacturing industry of the country. For too many years – went on Massimo Carboniero – we have worked mostly with foreign customers. Now, although exports rightly represent more than a half of our turnover, we are experiencing a correct re-balancing between domestic and foreign markets”.

“It is sure that the recovery of the technological gap, generated during the recession years, and the digital development have just started in Italy; the renewal process is long and articulated. For this reason, we fully agree with the intention expressed by the Government authorities to finance the incentives of Super- and Hyper-Depreciation even for the whole year 2018. In particular, also considering how the measures have been used by the enterprises till now, in our opinion there should be a transformation of Super-Depreciation into a structural provision and an applicability extension of Hyper-Depreciation to the whole year 2018. Only in this way – added the President of UCIMU-SISTEMI PER PRODURRE – we will be sure that the modernisation of the Italian manufacturing industry will have had a right start”.

“We hope that these proposals will be confirmed even in the next Enterprise Plan 4.0, included in the Budget Law 2018, together with the excellent provision already announced by the Government Ministers, which will allow the Italian enterprises to obtain a tax credit for the professional training activity started with regard to Industry 4.0”.

“Equipping manufacturing plants with tools that are suitable for supporting an efficient and competitive production, in terms of profitability, safety and flexibility is the first step to guarantee a future to the manufacturing industry, but – concluded Massimo Carboniero – the upgrade and development process would remain at the starting point if it were not adequately matched with an updating of the human resources that are already working in the enterprises or that will enter them in the next future”.

• Follow @CNCTimes