Colzate – Itema, the leading provider of advanced weaving solutions, announced the new structure of Itemalab®, the innovation incubator opened in 2014 at Kilometro Rosso innovation district in Bergamo.
Born with the goal to design the platform for the “loom of the future” and breakthrough solutions for the textile industry, Itemalab® becomes now an independent company and widens its field of action, providing customers and partners with system engineering and business process re-engineering skills.
With a team made up by 70 engineers and specialized professionals, the Textile division of Itemalab® will continue to respond to the innovation needs of Itema Group and the textile industry. The new Industrial division will, instead, become the reference point for all the industrial companies looking for a partner of excellence to study advanced solutions to digitalize and reshape industrial products and processes.
“The textile machinery sector is one of the most complex in the industrial scenario, due to the confluence of high precision mechanical, electronic and mechatronic technologies which, in this industry, face very severe challenges in terms of conditions of use, applications and productivity. Multidisciplinarity is one of the strong points of Itemalab®: it makes possible to offer transversal solutions and a significant added value in terms of innovation, sustainability, digitalization and system engineering, by transferring the know-how gained in the textile machinery world to other sectors”, said Lorenzo Minelli, General Manager of Itemalab®.
"Innovation is essential to compete in increasingly complex and competitive markets. With the strengthening and evolution of Itemalab®, we set the conditions for endless innovation opportunities in the most diverse application fields", added Ugo Ghilardi, CEO of Itema Group. “In recent years we teamed up with various companies and we explored new horizons and perspectives in the areas of materials and mechatronic principles. I am sure that Itemalab® will play a crucial role for the development of Itema Group and will become a key partner for many companies in their transformation and innovation paths”.
The evolution of Itemalab® confirms the traditional innovation drive of Itema Group, as underlined by Angelo Radici, on behalf of the Board: “The board of directors supports the strategic move of Itema and we share the same vision. As an entrepreneur, I firmly believe that today the way forward is that of teamwork, where collaboration and synergy of skills are the fundamental ingredients for growing in your sector and seizing possible opportunities in many others. As RadiciGroup, a few months ago we launched Radici InNova, a consortium company that aims at combining research and innovation activities across the Group's business areas by comparing and opening up to firms, universities and external public and private research centers. Itemalab® heads in this direction too, tackling complex projects and addressing cross-cutting initiatives that alone would be difficult even to imagine”.
Itema Group
Itema is a leading global provider of advanced weaving solutions, including best-in-class weaving machines, spare parts and integrated services. The Company is the only manufacturer in the world to provide the top three weft insertion technologies: rapier, air jet and projectile, with an ample product portfolio and a commitment to continuous innovation and technological advancement of its weaving machines. Itema owns majority shares in Lamilflex, a leading company in the production of finished products in composite materials, and in Schoch, a company active in the supply of accessories for the textile industry. 60% of Itema belongs to the heirs of Gianni Radici (the siblings Angelo, Maurizio, Paolo, Maria Grazia and Bruna Radici). The remainder is controlled by the Arizzi and Torri families.
Itemalab
Born from the desire of Itema Group to create an incubator of advanced innovation and dedicate a pool of specialists to the development of avant-garde weaving solutions, Itemalab® was inaugurated in May 2014 at the Kilometro Rosso Innovation District in Bergamo, chosen as site precisely because of its vocation as a place of exchange and contamination of ideas and projects among realities of excellence in the industrial, IT and academic fields. Over the last few years, Itemalab® has developed important innovations which, in addition to bringing significant added value for weavers all over the world, established new performance benchmarks for the entire sector. From 2021 Itemalab® redefines its boundaries, expanding its perspectives and widening the field of action thanks to the twin divisions Textile and Industrial.
