Fonderia de Torino

Introduction

Fonderia di Torino was founded in 1912 by Benito Cerini. The company was created to produce castings for the armaments industry. In the 1920’s and 1930’s the company expanded into the automotive industry. Benito Cerini foresaw the future demand for precision metal casting and revamped the company to meet the demand. The company grew slowly but steadily.

Fonderia di Torino’s specialization is the production of precision metal castings for the use in automotive, aerospace, and construction equipment. The company stood out because of its quality products. It was awarded for its quality parts. Its products included safety parts like crankshafts, transmissions, brake calipers, axles, wheels and various steering-assembly parts.

The mainly European customers of Fonderia di Torino were original-equipment manufacturers (OEM). The OEMs insisted on quality products. The OEMs gave preferential treatment to Fonderia di Torino. The confidential market-demand information that Fonderia di Torino received helped increase the precision of production scheduling and the company received relatively long-term supply contracts from the OEMs.

Francesca Cerini, the great-granddaughter of Benito Cerini, is the managing director of Fonderia di Torino. In November of 2000 she was faced with the decision of purchasing an automated molding machine called the Vulcan Mold-Maker. The machine would produce the sand molds into which molten iron was poured to get iron castings. The Vulcan Mold-Maker would replace an older machine and also some of the work force. It would make room for additional capacity and expansion. The sand molds currently used to make castings were prepared in a semi-automated process. The semi-automated process was labor intensive for the workers. It required training and retraining to meet the consistency in mold quality and demanded heavy lifting from workers. Medical claims had recently doubled as the mix of casting products moved toward heavy...