Excellence in Efficiency

At the beginning of 2000, the company stepped over continental boundaries for the first time with the opening of an office in China. Most recently, another location was opened in Mexico, and in 2021, one in India. Saleri is striving for sales of more than EUR 200 million, of which 80% goes to original equipment manufacturers and 20% to the spare parts market.

We met with Paolo Tanfoglio, Chief Operations Officer of Industrie Saleri Italo S.p.A.

Mr. Tanfoglio, Saleri has been involved in the hydraulic cooling systems sector for 80 years, a period in which enormous investments have been made in research and development. What is your strategy in these areas?

Our company produces its products intentionally in order to fulfill customers’ needs as well as possible. That’s why the research and development departments are the heart of the company: this is where the ideas arise. Over the years, we have invested a lot in this area, for product innovations are what allow us to play a special role on the automobile market. While in the beginning we only made individual products, today our competencies include producing a complete engine cooling system. Over the years we also created a department that focuses on electrification and heat management.

How does the cooperation with Staufen fit in with this path? What were the individual stages and what will the next steps be?

When we recognized the innovation in our strategy, it became clear to us that we must not only design outstanding products but manufacture them too. From this came the goal of setting in motion a Lean Transformation in order to be innovative with regard to production processes too, and thus be able to offer the customer complete service.

Our cooperation with Staufen began in 2019 with three milestones: The first was to consider what organization is most suitable for the concept of operative and service-related excellence. The second milestone was to define the best instruments to achieve our goal. The third was to make the project into an active item for our resources, for the focus of the Lean Transformation is the people. In the end, the transformation project brought us tangible results on the KPI level. To name just a few: We increased the efficiency of our systems by 20%, we reduced non-conformity with our customers by 60%, and therefore created a more reliable, safer product – and we also improved our delivery capacities.

How did your employees react to these changes?

We succeeded in making it clear to our long-time employees that this project will improve our daily work. There was teamwork on all levels, and both we managers as well as the Staufen consultants were focused on satisfying our employees’ needs. The leadership mechanism contributed a lot to revealing that we could really improve working conditions for everyone.

Let’s turn to sustainability policy: In which direction are you moving and what results have you already achieved?

We are following all developments in the automobile sector very precisely and also deriving our next goals from this. One of our primary topics is conserving environmental resources.

We are trying to make this clear to people – for they are the focal point of the transformation process – that efficiency improves our environmental performance. We believe firmly in this sustainability plan

Do you also use the methods of lean and Shop Floor Management for the control of your performance and sustainability goals?

Yes, when you start down this path, it changes the entire corporate culture. There’s no going back. For us, the culture change is already making itself felt in our word choices: For example, we don’t use the term “problem” anymore. Instead, we speak of deviation, which is a term that points to a dynamic concept.