MEP, WHERE PEOPLE COUNT AS MUCH AS TECHNOLOGY - Interview to Dr. Vito Rotondi
11/09/2019
category : MEP Business School
76 million turnover in 2018, 180 employees worldwide, 40 of which in Italy. These are the numbers of M.E.P. S.p.A., that stands for Macchine Elettroniche Piegatrici. The Company, whose headquarters is located in Reana del Rojale, Friuli Venezia Giulia, has that extra gear, and constantly pursues the creation of multidimensional Value to meet the needs of the Human Resources, the Community, Society at large and Wealth as a measure of improvement for stakeholders and stockholders. The Entrepreneur Giorgio Del Fabro is M.E.P.’s Chairman, since 1981, whereas Dr. Vito Rotondi is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, and a proud economist, too, whose office wall is decorated with a picture of Luigi Einaudi. Dr. Rotondi’s approach is strongly centered on the human value of work, as well as on a Hegelian perspective, with both his feet on the ground. The focus is on Corporate Governance, the holistic dimension of activities, repeatedly certified quality, heightened tidiness and order, efficiency and timeliness of industrial processes, elimination of waste in any kind or form; the focus is on World Class Manufacturing.
“We value the Human Capital. I don’t think the machine will ever be able to replace the human being”.
MEP’s CEO defines himself as confident; not optimist, rather realist. He looks at the future with hope and positive thoughts towards the Human Being (the capital letters are due!), who represents the true actor of growth and improvement. Mr. Rotondi’s belief in people is strong to such an extent that he gave birth to the MEP Business School, managed by the Information and Management Systems’ head Andrea Marino Cerrato. The MEP Business School is “a place where the individual’s educational and professional freedom entails common diligence and becomes competitive, social and income success”.
MEP designs and produces electronic machines and equipment to process and weld rebars, later used to reinforce concrete in big infrastructure construction processes. The product range goes from small machines all the way to big industrial plants, all of which strictly colored with MEP’s red paint. The company offers not only a large variety of products, but it covers the market’s needs entirely, offering to all intents and purposes a complete Technology Solution Provision to the Client, as well as the Aftermarket service and full Technical Assistance. MEP currently holds over one-hundred patents.
One of MEP’s most recent technology solutions is the OMNI 20, a bar-straightening, shaping and coil stirrup bending machine, which works in a fully automated manner and is able to guarantee extremely high levels both of efficiency and flexibility during production, along with maximum security of operations and processes; furthermore, the internal Research & Development department designed a unique stacking system, a MEP exclusive technology. The OMNI 20 produces small, medium and big-sized as well as narrow, wide, short or long bars and stirrups, thanks to hyperbolic rotors managed by size commutation devices and two independent and agile bending units. Shaped bars are then positioned on a sloped surface, allowing for an effective automated binding process. “It all happens through gravity: one of the main forces in physics, universally and humanly expressed”. Once the production process comes to an end, the shaped bars slide onto a conveyor; from there, they are passed onto a moving shelf, which in turn stacks them onto various collection racks. “The strength of this product lays in the universal and human dimension of its architecture, able to guarantee excellent results to the Client and great efficiency of the production process; OMNI, indeed!” (Dr. Vito Rotondi).
MEP was founded in 1996 by Remigio Del Fabro, the father of current Chairman and President Giorgio Del Fabro. The headquarters is still located in Friuli Venezia Giulia, where the company was first established, despite its strong international nature: MEP sells its products and services in 128 countries around the world, and counts 15 subsidiaries in Germany, France, Brazil, Poland, from South Korea all the way to Australia, North America and Canada, Russia and Spain. “MEP Group counts 11.000 working machines all over the World, and invests from 5 to 8% of its revenue in Research & Development; it keeps on writing its own future, through a human-centered, social, global and innovative perspective”.