Air Tech Italy recently spoke to its newest Member, Clampco Sistemi, a leading provider in obstruction, heliport and vertiport lighting. Sandro Piccoli – Sales Manager – was so kind as to introduce the company and its strategy to us.
Air Tech Italy: Sandro, can you introduce yourself, your function, and your company?
Sandro: “Of course, I am Sandro Piccoli, Sales Manager at Clampco Sistemi, I joined the company a few years ago after a long time experience in other industries including the high technology side of textile manufacturing. A large part of my focus lies in business development for our company Clampco Sistemi a business unit of Calzavara S.p.A., a large industrial group with a clear focus on developing innovative products and services.”
Air Tech Italy : What can you tell us about the Clampco Sistemi products and solutions?
Sandro: “One of my tasks, amongst others, is to make sure we expand into markets that are at the moment not performing as expected in terms of revenues and coverage, airports is such a good example. One of our core products are LED obstruction lights – which are used by airports and by many more industries – where warning lights are part of the safety set-up, whether oil & gas, windmills, tall buildings, etc… Obstruction lights address a certain need and our role is to help companies and organizations with a full solution that addresses their safety or other needs. We are not only an obstruction lights company, we have a full line of LED heliport lights both elevated and inset lights for helipads and heli-platforms no matter where they are installed. Last year we also launched our product line for vertiport platforms. “
Air Tech Italy : how important is your Membership of Air Tech Italy?
Sandro: “We started the collaboration with Air Tech Italy because of the overall impact the association has, it organizes many events and reaches the target groups that are of interest to us. The collaboration between Air Tech Italy and the Italian Trade Organization ICE is an important instrument to promote products and solutions on a global scale. And last but not least the networking opportunities and being part of a large Italian network of aviation companies is a critical element in front of customers. Instead of being just a provider of aviation solutions we – as part of the group – are part of a large player when talking to governmental agencies, the army and other aviation groups. Thanks to Air Tech Italy we created new interesting market openings in the Middle East for our full line of lights so we already immediately saw the benefits of our Membership.”
Air Tech Italy : Can you illustrate some recent “wins” with airport type customers?
Sandro: “ Of course, we have some nice wins, one of them being a series of heliport projects for ADAC – Germany (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club), the German automobile organization where we have supplied multiple heliport lighting systems and secondly we have a nice obstruction lighting project with a win for 3 iconic towers in Kuwait City. For this project we supplied beacons, control panels and accessories for the Aircraft Warning Light System as part of the full revamping of this landmark monument.
Air Tech Italy : What are for you the key trends in your line of business?
Sandro: “We continue to invest in innovation. We are currently developing a brand new line of lights that are managed by radio control meaning that there is no direct (cable) connection to the light but we use radio frequencies instead, to simplify the installation and have a more flexible solution in place for managing the lights. This is especially important where there is a limited possibility to put in extra cabling (think of older protected buildings) leading to a much higher degree of flexibility. We also develop a new generation of systems for powerlines which allows us to implement the “smart grid” features on traditional infrastructures, it consists of a system that is put on the powerlines and besides marking the overhead wires, manages a number of sensors that monitor the surrounding environment. This kind of monitoring helps with predictive maintenance alerting the owner if there are anomalies popping up like a fallen tree.”
Air Tech Italy : What more can we say about the way you differentiate?
Sandro: “I believe it’s critical to say a bit more about our solid engineering capabilities. Using our engineering capabilities, we go the extra mile to support our customers. We perform pre-studies to help consultants or the final customer to better manage the entire project. This is a key asset to get the installation right and contribute to high quality installations. The engineering approach is important to offset the pressure coming from low cost suppliers that do not focus on qualitative tailormade solutions like we do. Besides the engineering capabilities I also want to illustrate the role of sustainability in our approach. We have an important program in place that looks into every aspect of our business, from how we produce and what substances are used to how we recycle our products. We take our sustainability approach very serious having made it to key pillar of our overall business strategy”.
For more information, check out the Clampco Sistemi webpages; https://clampco.it/