Home at Biesse invited by Accesoria Group

A few weeks ago I received from Accessories Group | Equipment Division, the invitation to visit Biesse - Italian woodworking machinery company. As you have already learned, from February 2019 Accesoria Group is Biesse representative in Romania. The visit was organized as a press tour, being the first event in the series prepared for BIFE-SIM 2019. I must admit that I liked the idea from the beginning because I wrote about Biesse innovations, concepts such as AUTOMACTION and smart solutions tailored to factories and seeing them all at home sounds very promising.

But it's not about machines and smart factories that I want to talk to you about here. I'll do that soon because I saw a lot of interesting things there. But right now I want to tell you what impressed me most about Biesse and that is the transparency. It's incredible how open they were during this whole visit where we were walked through the whole factory, we were allowed to film any detail we wanted, we were answered all our questions.

Representatives of the magazines Intarzia and Furniture, wood and furniture magazines. It was a good idea to be together because we were able to get to know each other better, exchange ideas and make friends.

I have always wanted people working in the same field to get to know each other, to talk, to communicate. Regardless of the field. No secrets need to be revealed or new technologies unveiled, just try to improve what is common to the field. If you think about it, the guilds of yesteryear were formed precisely to improve the lives of all members.

We arrived at Biesse early this morning and the programme started with a presentation of the 50 years of activity celebrated this year, with a focus on the last years. Stefano Esposti, the regional sales manager who made the presentation, was also our host throughout the visit. A very attentive host indeed. Why do I say that? Because I had the impression, at first, that he didn't want to insist too much on technical details, thinking that they would probably bore us. After all, we were journalists. But that wasn't the case, and the questions started coming in during the presentation. Our host adapted immediately and answered all the questions. And this on-the-fly adaptation was to continue in the factory.

It was obvious, however, that this was what he wanted, an interest on our part that would allow him to go into more detail, to reveal Biesse's achievements, to tell us about the intelligent solutions developed with traditional partners.

The showroom was the first stop. Demonstrations were given on the machine Akron 1300 which can be equipped with any of the 3 available gluing systems, we have seen how you can get, on a CNC Rover A, a ball engraved with the Biesse logo and the map of Italy from a wooden parallelepiped or how you can make, on a similar CNC, but with the right cutters, a plastic mould. We asked everything we were interested in and got the answer every time.

After the showroom we went to the factory. It was then that I realized that the transparency I had seen from the beginning was not "played". It was as real as it gets. We filmed entire production lines without seeing a single annoyed or disgruntled face. Everyone was relaxed and behaving as if this was the natural flow of things.

Finally, because we were very interested in the programme Sophia that links the factory to each machine sold, they arranged for us to have a quick but thorough presentation after lunch, even though it wasn't on the schedule and it was time to leave for the airport (but the driver waited patiently for us for almost an hour). The software allows both the manufacturer and the beneficiary to access the data history and the same database related to the activity of a machine. It's a way of quickly resolving problems, sometimes the factory can flag up the problem before the beneficiary realises it exists. As of this year, all machines delivered to beneficiaries are equipped with this programme.

Openness seems to be more appreciated than secrecy

I think Biesse gains a lot from these press tours precisely by this openness, by wanting their ideas to be as well understood as possible by potential partners. I also think it is the best way to make partners trust the company, its knowledge and the products it offers.

I can say that I know this from experience. Many years ago, when I was selling wood varnishes and paints, I was one of the few people who spoke easily about products, technologies, application methods, little secrets that improved the end result. I knew that all the other competitors in the market knew these things too, but the fact that they didn't share them put me in a favorable light, made it seem like I knew more than they did. It was the reassuring detail that they were convinced that if there was a problem, they had someone to talk to.

That's why I say the Biesse example is one to follow. Every company has something special to communicate and it is good to do it in a natural, open way, not through dry communications or according to stereotypes that everyone already knows very well.

Congratulations, Accesoria Group, for the idea! Congratulations, Biesse, for transparency!