Sibo: ultra-specialized, passionate!

05/05/2015

They took their first steps in 1830. Today, in the middle of Val d’Ossola, Sibo is still a reference for customers all over the world who look for highly specialized machinery, often unavailable from other vendors.A story worth telling.

The heart has been beating in Ornavasso (Verbania) since 1830, at the entrance of Val d’Ossola, a few meters from the stone that marks the limits of the Partisan Republic, under a mountain covered with forests. The history of the company is part of the history of Italy, as witnessed by the honors received on June 8, 2011, during the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the Italian Union. Sibo, acronym for Società Industriale Brusa Ornavasso, has found its own place in the Italian industrial landscape. Over two centuries, it is curious and somehow exciting to see customers coming from faraway Mexico to purchase machines that cannot be found elsewhere, highly specialized and built “to measure”.

Wood and metal, up to stones (like rubies) for the watchmaking industry, but most of all passion and high specialization are the raw materials of Sibo, born from the handicraft experience of Graziano Brusa, the forefather of the family, in the 19^th century and taken over by today’s Sibo since 1968, under the guide of Alberto Brusa, who runs the company together with his son Graziano and wife Maria. The company belongs to the family, the family is the company, a workshop that smells like home… And a customer is not just a buyer of technology, but a person to establish a friendly relationship with. Things from the good old times? Maybe. Maybe just a bit, but this is the only place where some people find what they need…

“Our long history began with the great-great-grandfather of my husband, Graziano Brusa, who built mills and drilling machines for watch stones, a high-precision technology to process microscopic parts, we still offer these machines today”, Mrs. Brusa says.

“Then business grew and we started to serve wood turners for the production of handles for hammers, picks, brooms… Then we developed machines to make horse-riding whips, requested by a French company that is more than a customer for us, as they offer a job opportunity to disabled people.We did not stop, we added lines to produce wooden spoons and forks and brush handles.For a Finn manufacturer, we built a special numerical control machine for the production of toy cubes for kids, which can be operated by disabled people.For Slovenian customers we have recently developed a machine for plastering trowels.Our production also includes machines to make carpenter hammers, lamps and billiard sticks made of drawn reconstituted wood.When I say we make a machine, I mean we design and engineer it.Customers come to us with an item and we deliver a machine to make more, in less time, in unattended operation.

How have you developed this capacity to solve challenges that would be unapproachable for others?

“We owe it to great-grandfather and my father-in-law, who were always ready and good at solving any problem.It’s something in the dna that my father-in-law handed down to my husband Alberto and my son Graziano, who has the same name as his great-grandfather and is mostly involved in the design of custom and special machines.The latest creation is a numerical control machine for wooden toys.

Just think that we are developing a machine to make bamboo pens, executing a special operation of the raw material, that must be cut, drilled and milled.Also in this case, a beautiful and complicated job, as these machines will also be operated by disabled people.

We do so many things, and all so different, so we don’t have a catalog, only a few brochures, but we have more “secret” inventions than those we reveal.It is virtually impossible for us to make two identical machines, because they are so good that they run for decades!”.

It’s hard to do marketing with such a wide spectrum of proposals…

“The Internet is a blessing for us, though we work a lot by word of mouth from old to new customers. This brings excellent results even abroad, for instance we have found a contact in Russia through a French customer, specializing in brass handrail polishing.

Word-of-mouth is supported by our capacity to solve even strange and complex problems, always paying great attention to finishing quality:the parts coming out of our machines look as if they were sanded!Then, it is essential that all these operations are managed by suitable software, both during equipment design and during process management, whereby such skill requires qualified and efficient workers, helping the company handle the workload without any delays in shipments.This is a problem, because today it is hard to find the right people to employ”.

In times like these, it is hard to pursue such philosophy, these “certainties”…

“Very hard, especially because there is no direct link between school and business, which would ensure a generation turnover:what will we do when people who have stayed with us for a lifetime finally retire?Today, youngsters from professional schools coming to us for training stages can only watch and not even get close to machinery; and sometimes they don’t even have suitable education.Years ago it was different:young people were better trained, and many of them were employed.

We are a small company with strong specialization.A small team that also involves external suppliers and partners according to the machine to be produced.In our factory we execute final assembling and testing.And as I said, we do everything ourselves, from the initial idea to solve a problem to the executing project, up to the production of the required components, either on our own machines or outsourced to wonderful suppliers that you can still find in this area of Italy”.

Which segments generate bigger demand?

“Wooden spoons and cutlery.Brushes or knife handles, we definitely make the most beautiful, fastest, smartest machines for these applications, selling all over the world to the most famous knife manufacturers in five continents.

Our business is everything that is not standard.Consider pickaxe handles:a customer comes to us and asks to make a machine that can process the item he has brought, a handle that is exclusive and custom, specific for that company.A Brazilian customer requested a machine to make hammer handles covered with carvings, as if they came out from a carver’s workshop…

And we work a lot abroad, in Italy we only provide spare parts for many of our machines that are still up and running.Italian companies prefer to buy turning machines abroad, at low prices and even lower quality. But if you consider the time it takes to make one piece and the following operations to give it at least a resemblance of quality…

We make high-speed machines that require a significant investment, but they deliver tens of parts ready to be assembled in the same time as other machines produce one or two pieces.Where is the real benefit?Which option will pay back over time?

All too often, we don’t even realize what we offer, which skills we have, which specialization we can put on the table… Our specialization, our expertise protects us from counterfeiting and copying, which is limited to standard products, including some types of sanding machines and equipment to produce shovel, pickaxe and broom handles.”

Mrs. Brusa, a childhood dream?

“Get recognition for our skills in a wider domain. We have an ancient tradition combined with modern technology and tools, to deliver reliable productive equipment. We are always the same, customers come to us from all over the world because they have heard about us, they have seen our machines in action. In a world where everything is the same, we can realize someone’s dream to make a difference…”.

It’s late and it’s time to travel back to Milan. It’s raining between Val d’Ossola and the lake. Strange land, maybe forgotten, maybe neglected. A place of history, passion and ingenuity that should not be lost, values that a world fascinated by high technology, factories moved out to distant countries and extreme automation cannot afford to forget…