Bolzoni Auramo's headquarters in Piacenza, Italy.

Italy-based Bolzoni Auramo Group is a leading European manufacturer of forklift attachments. Forkliftaction.com News speaks to Bolzoni Auramo's sales & marketing director Carlo Fallarini this week about his company.

Q. What are your company's products/services?

Bolzoni Auramo is the leading European manufacturer of forklift attachments, lift tables and hand-pallet trucks. Its core business activity is attachments. Bolzoni Auramo supplies forklift OEMs and dealers with a wide range of handling products, including sideshifters, integral and hook-on, fork positioners, multi-pallet handlers, rotators, fork clamps, carton and appliances clamps, drum clamps, push pulls, waste paper and pulp bale clamps, paper roll clamps, reach forks, and other different attachments suitable for handling cases.

Q. Give a brief history of your company's involvement in the materials handling industry.

Bolzoni Auramo plant in Shanghai.

The Bolzoni Auramo Group was established in 2001, when Bolzoni Spa, founded in 1945, merged with the acquired company Auramo OY, founded in 1947.

Bolzoni Spa, based in Casoni di Podenzano, Piacenza, Italy, was founded by Luigi and Livio Bolzoni, who both began studying materials handling solutions in 1945. In 1973 the company structure changed into a joint-stock company and soon after Bolzoni started creating a distributor network all over Europe and internationally. At the end of 1987, Bolzoni merged with Italian company Teko, which specialised in manufacturing hand-pallet trucks and lifting tables.

Auramo Oy, Vantaa, near Helsinki, Finland, was founded in 1947, by Hannu Auramo, as an engineering agency, practising construction design and offering quality technical supervision services. The company manufactured industrial cylinders and developed warehouse solutions. In the 1960s, forest products and the paper industry became a focused applications field, with the subsequent manufacture of paper roll clamps, bale clamps and other specialised handling attachments.

On January 17, 2002, the Bolzoni Auramo Group acquired the American brand Brudi. Brudi is a pioneer and market leader in palletless handling attachments worldwide. Brudi palletless handling products are manufactured by Brudi Bolzoni Auramo Inc, in Homewood, Chicago, and exported worldwide.

Q. What is your company's current position in the regional market? How about globally?

An intelligent carton and appliances clamp - Model ETXS-G3.

The Bolzoni Auramo Group has benefited from an extraordinary growth rate in the last 10 years and today is the largest forklift attachment manufacturer in Europe and the second largest in the world. The group is active on all continents. It has six production plants, 17 companies, and employs 550 people. Group turnover in 2004 was EUR83 million.

Q. What makes your company outstanding in its market?

The Bolzoni Auramo Group offers the widest product range in the market, supplying leading equipment for general handling and forest products, and customer-oriented solutions for special applications.

Passion, determination, technological research and innovation capacity have enabled the group to reach ambitious targets in the market.

A paper roll clamp

Bolzoni Auramo is leader in the OEMs originally installed sideshifters market. The company's product has been tested and approved for factory fitting by the most important forklift manufacturers from Europe, America and Japan. Many Bolzoni Auramo attachments are officially listed in the general product books of major forklift OEMs.

Q. Tell us your company's future plans.

In terms of products, Bolzoni Auramo is investing a lot in technical innovation. Electronic technology is becoming increasingly relevant in the forklift attachment field especially to control the clamping force, with the aim to assure safe, fast-load, damage-free handling.

The Bolzoni Auramo Group is committed to opening new markets, especially in the Eastern European countries and China, the only really growing markets in the world. In Shanghai, Bolzoni Auramo has just opened a new production facility, which will supply the Chinese market with locally manufactured products.

An important project for the company is to be publicly listed on the Stock Exchange in Milan. The group's positive financial results for the past few years are motivation for it to reach this goal, which will happen soon.