ITALY 05The Lineage of Italian Milling Machines and Machining Centers
In the early 20th century, Italian milling machines were something you bought from the US and Germany. That changed with the machines the typewriter maker Olivetti built for its own plants. Copy milling machines cut dies in Torino, and then came Olivetti's NC and machining centers, the FMS and 5-axis machines of Mandelli, MCM and Jobs in Piacenza, and the high-speed milling machines of Fidia in Torino. Along the way, milling machines changed form to suit the work of cars, dies and aircraft. In this chapter we trace how the milling machine's mechanisms (the way the table is fed: hand feed and feed screw → feed screw with automatic backlash take-up → hydraulic copying → NC servo → linear motor; the way tools are changed: by hand → automatic change from a tool magazine → automatic head change; the way workpieces are changed: pallets → FMS) changed, and how that changed the way parts are cut on the shop floor, checking each point against newspapers, trade journals, patents, UN reports and company histories of the time and citing a source for every event.
From copying
to five axes:
on to Piacenza!
First, just three terms. Copy milling machines (fresatrice a copiare) move the cutter in step with a stylus (tracer) that traces the shape of a model, copying the same shape into metal. Machining center (centro di lavoro, MC): a machine with a tool magazine and an automatic tool changer that drills, bores and mills in sequence under NC. FMS (flexible manufacturing system) links many MCs with pallet handling equipment and a computer, running different parts with fewer people. For how today's machines are used, see the “Machining center” and “5-axis machining” pages; for the history of MCs in Japan, see Japanese Archive, Chapter 2. Large horizontal boring and milling machines (Pama, Innse) are covered in Chapter 8, “Other Machine Tools.”
Imported milling machines and OMO (1900–1945)
1909: a car plant's milling machines were American and German
In May 1909 an official of the US Department of Commerce and Labor inspected the Torino car maker Itala (about 800 people, 480 machine tools). Its milling machines were plain and vertical machines from Brown & Sharpe of the US, plain and universal machines from Cincinnati, vertical and horizontal machines from Becker-Brainard, and machines from Germany's Loewe, Reinecker and Deutsche Niles. The Italian-made machines the report lists were gear cutters and grinders and boring machines built in the works itself, with no milling machines[1].
A universal milling machine is a milling machine whose table swivels and which, combined with a dividing head, can cut helical grooves and even gears. It is of the type called knee-type: a saddle and table are stacked on a knee that moves up and down, and fed in three directions by feed screws. Italian car plants first equipped themselves by import with this machine, indispensable for cutting the grooves, flats and keyways of car parts (for the story of American milling machines, see The Lineage of American Milling Machines and MCs).
At the army's precision works in Roma, the milling machines were mainly Loewe and Wanderer (Chemnitz), including a Loewe that had just arrived. Among Italian-made machines, lathes and milling machines by Züst of Lago Maggiore were in use. This works had its own machines for dividing graduated dials and a vertical copying device, both designed and built in-house[1]. At the rifle factory in Terni, Umbria, recently purchased Garvin milling machines from the US were well regarded, and there were also a Becker No.1 vertical milling machine (5,500 lire) and Becker-Brainard No.2 vertical milling machines (3,000 lire each). Only 10 of its 1,400 machine tools were American; the rest were machines brought in from Britain in the 1880s and German machines[1]. At the 1911 Torino International Exposition, FIAT exhibited lathes, drilling machines, milling machines and planers built in its own works[2].
Olivetti's OMO and the beginnings of Mandelli
In 1926 Olivetti, the typewriter maker of Ivrea, founded the machine tool company OMO (Officina Meccanica Olivetti) to build presses, lathes, milling machines, grinders and planers for its own plants. In 1957 the British magazine Engineering reported that all the machine tools in Olivetti's plants were made by OMO, and that it had made its own castings since 1922[3]. Machining the small parts of typewriters in large numbers takes many near-special-purpose machines for drilling, flats and slots. By building them itself, OMO gained in-house the know-how to design and build milling machines.
Mandelli of Piacenza, later a maker of MCs and FMS, was started in 1932 by Renato Mandelli as a one-man works for precision machining of mechanical parts[4]. At first it was on the user side of machine tools: a job shop cutting parts.
What changed on the shop floor. In the first half of the 20th century, milling machines in Italy were expensive imports, and mass-production plants cut slots and flats with American universal milling machines and German machines. Domestic milling machine technology began to grow from parts makers, like Olivetti, building their own machine tools.
Plano-millers, copy milling machines and the beginnings of NC (1945–1973)
Olivetti's FP4 plano-milling machine
A plano-milling machine (fresatrice-pialla) moves a long table back and forth between the columns of a portal frame like a planer, but carries rotating milling heads instead of cutting tools. It can mill the flat surfaces of long parts in one pass. The January–June 1953 issues of Olivetti's in-house magazine introduced OMO's new plano-milling machine FP4. The first, the FP0, was designed by the founder Camillo Olivetti; it and the larger FP2 had each been built by the hundreds and sold in Italy, France, Britain and South America[7].
The FP4's design shows the challenges milling machines faced at the time. It had 1 to 3 heads and table strokes of 500, 1,000 and 1,800 mm. A heavy feed screw drove the table, and the play between screw and nut (backlash) was taken up automatically, so it could down-mill (climb mill: cutting with tool rotation and feed in the same direction), running quietly with a good finish and long tool life. It was made rigid enough for carbide tools with negative rake, and by putting a second machining cycle in place of the rapid return, one could cut on one side of the table while loading the next part on the other[7]. It was a milling machine built from the mass-production plant's side, on the understanding that to make use of carbide tools you need a rigid machine and a feed with no play. The same issue also featured Olivetti's photoelectric pantograph MR 3 for engraving textile printing rolls. It read the pattern drawing with light and moved the cutter accordingly: a kind of copying[7].
Rambaudi's copy milling machines
Three-dimensional dies, such as press dies for car bodies and forging dies, are cut by making a model and copying its shape into metal. Copy milling machines are the machines for this: as the tracer (stylus) touches and moves over the model, a hydraulic or electric mechanism moves the cutter by the same amount. Rambaudi, born in Torino in the 1940s,[5] became a specialist maker of them. The British trade journal Machinery featured the Ramcop-3D three-dimensional copy milling machine in the first half of 1967, the hydraulic copying Ramcop 3D-1000 and the bed-type Ram-Mill in the second half of 1969, and the Ram-Matic bed-type vertical milling machine in 1972[8][12][14].
In a newspaper advertisement for the 6th BI-MU (Milano's machine tool biennial, 730 exhibits) in October 1968, Rambaudi listed “toolroom milling machines, hydraulic copy milling machines, electronic copy milling machines and NC milling machines”[10]. It was a lineup caught midway as copying moved from hydraulics to electronics, and then on to NC. At the same BI-MU, Philips of the Netherlands showed its NC units mounted on Italian machines from Rambaudi, Mecof, Bragonzi, Icma and others[10], and T.E.O.M.R. of the Pirelli group showed Fresadue, a twin milling machine with continuous-path NC for cutting tire molds[11]. Cutting without a model, by commanding the shape in numbers: for die shops, NC arrived as the next tool after copying.
Olivetti's NC and machining centers
In the 1960s Olivetti set up a numerical control division (Divisione Controllo Numerico) which, along with NC units, the RQ digital position readout for machine tools and the Inspector measuring machine, built machines carrying its own NC, which it called “Machining centers.” According to a full-page advertisement in La Stampa in September 1967, the vertical-spindle Auctor handled drilling, tapping, boring and milling with point-to-point positioning (moving to a coordinate point, stopping and machining there), the Auctor Multiplex selected the tools it needed automatically from 12, and the new horizontal Horizon could hold up to 31 tools. They were also shown at the European Machine Tool Exhibition in Hannover that September[9].
Changing tools automatically allows drilling, boring and milling to be done in sequence on one machine in a single setup. The advertisement said it would “multiply the competitiveness of engineering firms doing medium and small batch work”[9]. In March 1969 Olivetti's Elio Pagella and Carlo Guerci filed for a device in which a stepper motor, driven directly from the NC, gives the radial feed of a tool head mounted on and rotating with the spindle. It was meant to complete in a single NC cycle the facing and grooving that had been fed through gears or planetary gears and needed a human hand to start (US Patent 3,710,659, granted 1973)[13].
Mandelli's EGO and REGENT
Mandelli of Piacenza became a general partnership of the founder and his sons in 1960, and in 1965 built its first machine tools, POSITIV, MEDAL and THEMA. It then built what the company history calls “the first machine with the basic features of a machining center,” the EGO, and became a joint-stock company (sometime between 1965 and 1970). In 1970 it brought out the modular REGENT, which could be built into larger installations, and began machining titanium for aircraft[4].
What changed on the shop floor. In die shops, the work of “making a model and copying it” on copy milling machines spread, and at the end of the 1960s NC arrived, commanding the shape in numbers instead of a model. In parts plants, MCs that changed tools automatically let parts that had traveled between drilling, milling and boring machines be finished on one machine. How to write NC programs today is covered on the NC programming page, and CAD/CAM on the CAD/CAM page.
Machining centers, 5-axis and FMS (1974–1993)
Fidia: NC for cutting dies
In 1974 two young engineers from the Politecnico di Torino founded Fidia in Torino. It made NC units, using the minicomputers that were then new, for milling the free-form (sculpture-like) surfaces of models and dies. One of the founders, Giuseppe Morfino, took the company name from Phidias, the ancient Greek sculptor who made the sculptures of the Parthenon in Athens[15][16]. Fidia's aim was to replace the “tracing a model” work of copy milling machines with computer calculation of surfaces.
Mandelli's FMS and QUASAR
In 1975 Mandelli built its first FMS and set up sales and service subsidiaries in Germany (Wiesbaden) and France (near Paris). According to the company history, in 1980 it signed a production license agreement with Japan's Amada and also developed its own NC unit, Plasma (we could not confirm this in Amada's materials). The 1980–81 MC QUASAR was designed by Ettore Sottsass and Matteo Thun, known for their designs of Olivetti typewriters and computers[4][20]. In 1987 it took a license, together with GE of the US, to the FMS patents of Britain's Molins[22]. In December 1989 it was listed on the Milano stock exchange and formed Spring, a joint venture for applied research, with IBM Italia[4].
MCM: horizontal MCs with pallets, and FMS
Born in Piacenza in 1978, MCM (Machining Centers Manufacturing) brought out PROGRESS in 1979, a horizontal MC with a carousel-type tool changer (tools arranged on a rotating disc). The CONNECTION of 1982 was a horizontal MC integrating four pallets with a magazine holding tools in two concentric circles. With the next workpiece set up on a pallet, it can be swapped in the moment machining ends, keeping the machine running without stopping. In 1985 it delivered its first FMS to the British brake company Lucas Girling[17].
Jobs: 5-axis moving-column and gantry machines
Founded in 1978 as a maker of factory automation machinery, Piacenza's Jobs brought out in 1981 a 5-axis, moving-column milling machine with an 18,000 rpm spindle, the Jomach 16. In this layout the column moves instead of the heavy workpiece. The Jomach 25 of 1982 was a high-speed 5-axis moving-gantry machine for cutting styling models and aircraft parts, and the Jomach 35 of 1985 a moving-crossrail machine with a working volume of about 40 m³[18]. Because a 5-axis machine can tilt the tool to meet a curved surface, the curved surfaces of car styling models, dies and aircraft parts can be cut without repeated re-setups.
Large gantry milling machines: Carnaghi
In 1981 the vertical lathe maker Pietro Carnaghi set up a machining plant, ISPA, in Villa Cortese and began building large gantry milling machines, later known by the name UNIMILL[21]. A gantry machine forms a gate with two columns and a crossbeam and moves the spindle head along the beam, so it can cut wide surfaces of large, heavy workpieces left on the table. Like the vertical lathe, it is a machine for large parts for generators, construction machinery and aircraft (for vertical lathes, see Chapter 4).
1988: overtaking the US
According to a 1991 report by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Italy became the world's fifth-largest machine tool producer from 1978, and in 1988, in production value, it overtook the US, accounting for about 7.5% of the world total. As in Japan, NC machine output grew on small firms' demand for flexible equipment, and Italy became Europe's second-largest producer of NC machines[23]. Machine tool sales in 1988 were $380 million for Comau of the FIAT group (the largest in Italy and Europe) and $110 million for Mandelli[23] (Comau's FMS is covered in Chapter 3). The same report says 72% of Italian machine tool makers (a survey of 300 of about 450) had fewer than 50 employees, and that 71% of the industry was concentrated in the Lombardia and Piemonte regions[23]. Unlike Germany, where the average company was five times the size of Italy's (same report), the Italian pattern was for small companies to concentrate each on its own machine types.
What changed on the shop floor. Once MCs got pallets and handling equipment and became FMS, machines could keep cutting parts through the night with no one present. 5-axis moving-column and gantry machines made it possible to cut curved surfaces without moving large workpieces. Italian MC makers came to specialize in near-custom machines and systems tailored to the large, complex work of cars, aircraft and dies.
★High speed, 5-axis and restructuring (1990–)
Fidia's high-speed milling machines
Around 1990 the NC maker Fidia began building milling machines under its own brand in San Mauro Torinese, moving on to high-speed milling (HSM) machines. In 1994 it had about 180 people and subsidiaries in Frankfurt, Zürich, Detroit, Bilbao, Paris and Beijing, and in Beijing it had formed a joint venture with two Chinese organizations[15][16]. High-speed milling runs the spindle fast and feeds quickly with small depths of cut, machining curved die surfaces right through to the finish. It reduces hand polishing, so it spread through die shops. Few companies can make both NC units and machines, and Fidia is one of them[15]. It listed on the Milano stock exchange in 2000[26][27].
Head changing and linear motors
In 1990 Jobs brought out the Jomach 245 with a 37 kW spindle and automatic head changing, and in 1995 B.U.S.S. (a system that changes heads automatically to finish roughing, semi-finishing and finishing in a single setup). The 2000 LinX Compact drives its axes directly by linear motors: a large high-speed milling machine[18]. According to a US trade journal in 2002, LinX came in Blitz, Compact and Design versions with interchangeable spindles, and about 650 Jobs 5-axis machines were installed around the world[25].
MCM, too, brought out the CLOCK HP with a high-speed spindle and fast tool change in 1993, the linear-motor FORERUNNER in 1997, and in 2001 a 5-axis MC with a tilting head and the Jet Five, which uses linear motors to cut aircraft structural parts; in 1995 it delivered an FMS of four 5-axis cells to Dassault Aviation[17]. Instead of turning a ball screw's rotation into straight-line motion, a linear motor moves the table or spindle head directly by magnetic force. With no screw play or wear and with fast acceleration, it suits finishing curved surfaces with repeated fine feeds.
Mandelli's crisis and the SPARK
In the worldwide recession of 1993 Mandelli ran into trouble, and the state placed Mandelli industriale under extraordinary administration of large companies (amministrazione straordinaria) in January 1994 and Mandelli S.p.A. in March[24]. The same year the company was taken over by a group of Italian entrepreneurs, and at EMO Milano in May 1995 it showed the medium and large MCs STORM and ROCK[4]. In 2002, as part of the Riello group, it was building the 5-axis THUNDER and other machines[25].
The 2005 SPARK X is a horizontal 5-axis MC with all three linear axes on the tool side and the workpiece on a rotary table fixed to the bed. Because the heavy workpiece is not moved in X, Y and Z, the moving parts are lighter and can move fast and accurately. In 2008 the company won an order for a line of RUMBLE 5-axis machines to cut 6 m-long titanium parts for the Boeing 787[4].
Restructuring: Sachman, FFG, RIFA, Nidec
The copy milling machine maker Rambaudi ceased operations in July 2002 (186 people in Rivoli), and in September it was bought by Sachman of Reggio Emilia, a maker of milling machines and MCs[6][5]. In 2009 Jobs absorbed Sachman, and in 2012 it also took a majority of Sigma (Vigevano), a maker of vertical MCs, forming FFG Europe (of Taiwan's Fair Friend group), which brings together Jobs, Sachman, Rambaudi and Sigma. Production was concentrated in Piacenza in 2014–15[18]. MCM came under the RIFA group in 2014[17], and Mandelli joined the Allied International group in 2021[4].
In 2012 Fidia had a subsidiary in China that built and sold NC units and milling machines of Fidia design[28], but after financial difficulties from 2019 it applied for a court restructuring procedure (concordato) in November 2020, which the court approved in June 2022[29]. In February 2023 Japan's Nidec acquired all the shares of PAMA (about 430 people), a maker of horizontal boring and milling machines founded in Verona in 1926 and now headquartered in Rovereto[30]. The history of the large horizontal boring and milling machines of PAMA and Innse is covered in Chapter 8, “Other Machine Tools.”
What changed on the shop floor. With high-speed spindles, automatic head changing and linear motors from the 1990s, die and aircraft parts came to be cut “from roughing to finishing on one machine, in one setup.” Hand polishing time fell, and the machining program (CAM) came to decide the finish. Many Italian MC makers now survive within Taiwanese, Japanese and Italian groups as specialists in large, 5-axis and aerospace machines.
Links with Japan
Three links could be confirmed. The first is, according to Mandelli's company history, a production license agreement with Amada in 1980. Which side was licensed to build which machines is not stated in the history, and we could not confirm it in Amada's materials either[4]. The second is Nidec's acquisition of PAMA in 2023. PAMA now, as a company under Nidec's direction, handles Nidec Machine Tool's MCs (the MVR-HX series) alongside its own horizontal boring and milling machines and MCs[30][31].
The third is the similarities between Japan and Italy noted in a report by an international organization. The 1991 UNIDO report attributes the growth of Italy's NC machine output, “as in Japan,” to small firms' demand for flexible equipment, and adds that in Italy and Japan the existence of large, flexible subcontracting networks seems linked to the high diffusion of NC machine tools[23]. The same report also says that while the US has the largest number of NC machines, Italy appears to have the highest share of NC machines among installed machines[23]. The story of Japanese MCs is told in the timeline of Chapter 2 of the Japanese archive, and Japan's 5-axis and multitasking machines in Chapter 7.
⑂Family tree of makers
The names and owners of the main Italian milling machine and MC makers. A name or owner changes where a band changes color. For Olivetti's machine tool division, the band stops at the last confirmed year (the Auctor and the NC tool head patent), with a dotted line beyond. Rambaudi's founding is known only as “the 1940s,” so it is drawn from 1945.
Places to visit
In this research we found no machine tool museum in Italy with milling machines or MCs on permanent display. Listed here are the towns and archives of companies that built machine tools, and the trade fair where today's machines are shown. Check opening days and whether visits are possible with each before you go.
⌛Timeline
All the events confirmed in this chapter. The numbers are sources; click one to open the source (at the page, where known). “p.” is a page of a book or report, and “frame” is the sequence number of an Internet Archive scan. Events whose only basis is a company's history have a single source.
Imported milling machines and OMO1900–1945
| Year | Event | Maker / model | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 1909 | ★A US official inspects the Torino car plant Itala. Its milling machines are from Brown & Sharpe (plain and vertical), Cincinnati (plain and universal) and Becker-Brainard (vertical and horizontal) of the US, and Loewe, Reinecker and Deutsche Niles of Germany. The Italian-made machines the report lists are gear cutters and grinders and boring machines built in the works itself, with no milling machines | Itala (Torino)Brown & Sharpe, Cincinnati, Becker-Brainard, Loewe, Reinecker | [1, p.165][1, p.166] |
| May 1909 | At the army's precision works in Roma, the milling machines were mainly Loewe and Wanderer, including a Loewe that had just arrived. Italian-made machines were Züst lathes and milling machines. The works designed and built its own vertical copying device. At Terni, recently bought Garvin milling machines from the US were well regarded | Laboratorio di Precisione (Roma), Terni rifle factoryLoewe, Wanderer, Züst, Garvin | [1, p.168][1, p.169] |
| 1911 | At the Torino International Exposition, the car maker FIAT exhibits lathes, drilling machines, milling machines and planers built in-house. In the same section Germany's Reinecker showed universal and vertical milling machines | FIAT (Torino)Lathes, drilling machines, milling machines, planers | [2, frame 94][2, frame 95] |
| 1926 | ★Olivetti sets up OMO in Ivrea to build machine tools for its own factory. It made presses, lathes, milling machines, grinders and planers, and later sold them to outside customers tooA 1962 German-language company history has a passage that can be read as 1924, but we adopted 1926 from Engineering (1957) | OMO (Officina Meccanica Olivetti, Ivrea)Milling machines, grinders, planers | [3, frame 9] |
| 1932 | Renato Mandelli starts a one-man shop in Piacenza for precision machining of machine parts | Mandelli (Piacenza) | [4] |
Plano-millers, copy milling machines and the beginnings of NC1945–1973
| Year | Event | Maker / model | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1940s | Rambaudi is born in Torino. It later became known as a maker of milling machines and lathesThe founding year is given only as “the 1940s” (l'Unità 2002). La Stampa in 2002 says “more than half a century” | Rambaudi (Torino) | [5][6] |
| 1953 | ★Olivetti announces the FP4 plano-miller. It succeeded the FP0 designed by Camillo Olivetti and its larger version, the FP2 (several hundred of each), with 1 to 3 heads and table strokes of 500, 1,000 and 1,800 mm. Backlash in its heavy feed screw was taken up automatically to allow climb milling, and it was made rigid enough for carbide tools with negative rake | OMO (Olivetti)FP4 plano-miller | [7, frame 991][7, frame 993] |
| 1965 | Mandelli, which had become an Snc (general partnership) with the founder's sons in 1960, builds its first machine tools, POSITIV, MEDAL and THEMA, and puts up the first building of today's plant | MandelliPOSITIV, MEDAL, THEMA | [4] |
| First half of 1967 | ★The British trade journal Machinery introduces Rambaudi's three-dimensional copy milling machine Ramcop-3DIndex p.1320; article text not seen | Rambaudi (Torino)Ramcop-3D | [8] |
| September 1967 | ★Olivetti advertises machining centers carrying its own NC units. The vertical-spindle Auctor handled drilling, tapping, boring and milling with point-to-point positioning, the Auctor Multiplex selected from 12 tools automatically, and the new horizontal Horizon could hold up to 31. Shown at the European Machine Tool Exhibition in Hannover in September | Olivetti numerical control divisionAuctor, Auctor Multiplex, Horizon | [9] |
| Late 1960s | ★Mandelli builds EGO, its first machine with the basic features of a machining center, and turns the company into a joint-stock company (S.p.A.)The official history lists it only under 1965–1970, so the year cannot be pinned down | MandelliEGO | [4] |
| October 1968 | The 6th BI-MU (Milano) has 730 exhibitors. Rambaudi shows toolroom, hydraulic copying, electronic copying and NC milling machines, and Philips shows its own NC controls fitted to machines by Rambaudi, Mecof, Bragonzi, Icma and others | BI-MU, Rambaudi, Mecof and othersCopy milling machines, NC milling machines | [10] |
| October 1968 | T.E.O.M.R. of the Pirelli group shows Fresadue, a twin milling machine with continuous-path NC for cutting tire molds, at the 6th BI-MU | T.E.O.M.R. (Pirelli group)Fresadue | [11] |
| Late 1969 | Machinery covers Rambaudi's hydraulic copy milling machine Ramcop 3D-1000 and the bed-type Ram-Mill | RambaudiRamcop 3D-1000, Ram-Mill | [12] |
| March 1969 | Olivetti's Elio Pagella and Carlo Guerci file an Italian application (March 4) for a device in which the NC drives the radial feed of a tool head rotating on the spindle directly with a stepper motor. It completes facing and grooving in one cycle without human intervention. The US patent was granted on January 16, 1973 | OlivettiNC tool head (US Patent 3,710,659) | [13] |
| 1970 | Mandelli announces REGENT, a new modular range that can be combined and built into larger systems. It also begins machining titanium and other materials for aircraft | MandelliREGENT | [4] |
| 1972 | Machinery introduces Rambaudi's bed-type vertical milling machine Ram-Matic | RambaudiRam-Matic | [14] |
Machining centers, 5-axis and FMS1974–1993
| Year | Event | Maker / model | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | ★Two young engineers from the Politecnico di Torino (one of them Giuseppe Morfino) found Fidia. Using minicomputers, it makes NC units for milling the free-form surfaces of models and dies. The name comes from the ancient Greek sculptor Phidias | Fidia (Torino)NC controls for dies and molds | [15][16] |
| 1975 | ★Mandelli builds its first FMS (a flexible manufacturing system linking several MCs with transport equipment and a computer) and sets up sales and service subsidiaries in Wiesbaden and near Paris | MandelliFMS | [4] |
| 1978 | MCM (Machining Centers Manufacturing) is founded. The next year, 1979, it brings out PROGRESS, its first horizontal MC, with a carousel tool changer | MCM (Piacenza) | [17] |
| 1978 | Jobs, a maker of factory automation machines, is born, and in 1979 brings out a 5- to 6-axis robot for handling heavy loadsA 1986 Italian magazine article (in a US government translation) says Jobs was “founded by two engineers who left Mandelli in 1979,” that it specialized in handling robots fitted to machine tools, and that it sold 23 of them in 1984. The year is one off from the company history (1978) | Jobs (Piacenza) | [18][19, p.18] |
| 1980 | According to Mandelli's history, it signs a production license agreement with Amada of Japan this year. It also develops its own NC control, PlasmaNot confirmed in Amada's own records. Which machines the license covered is also unconfirmed | Mandelli, Amada (Japan)Production license, Plasma NC control | [4] |
| 1981 | ★Jobs brings out the Jomach 16, a 5-axis traveling-column milling machine with an 18,000 rpm spindle | JobsJomach 16 | [18] |
| 1981 | Mandelli's MC QUASAR is designed by the architects and designers Ettore Sottsass and Matteo ThunMandelli's history lists it under 1980, and the Sottsass Associati catalogue of works under 1981. Some books give 1979–80 | MandelliQUASAR | [4][20] |
| 1981 | The vertical lathe maker Pietro Carnaghi sets up the machining works ISPA in Villa Cortese and begins building large gantry milling machines (the later UNIMILL) | Pietro CarnaghiDouble-column milling machine | [21] |
| 1982 | MCM brings out CONNECTION, a horizontal MC integrating a 4-pallet system and a carousel tool magazine (tools in two concentric rows). Jobs brings out the Jomach 25, a high-speed 5-axis moving-gantry machine for cutting design models and aircraft parts | MCM, JobsCONNECTION, Jomach 25 | [17][18] |
| 1985 | MCM delivers its first FMS to Lucas Girling in Britain. Jobs brings out the Jomach 35, a 5-axis moving-crossrail milling machine with a working volume of about 40 m³ | MCM, JobsFMS, Jomach 35 | [17][18] |
| October 1987 | Mandelli, together with GE of the US, becomes a licensee of the FMS patents of Molins of BritainAmerican Machinist index (Oct p.21); article text not seen | Mandelli, GE (US)Molins FMS patents | [22] |
| 1988 | ★Italy's machine tool production value overtakes the US, reaching about 7.5% of the world total (fifth in the world since 1978). NC machine output grows on small firms' demand for flexible equipment, making Italy Europe's second-largest NC machine producer. Machine tool sales: Comau (FIAT group) $380 million, Mandelli $110 million | Italian machine tool industry | [23, p.63][23, p.38][23, p.39] |
| December 1989 | Mandelli lists on the Milano stock exchange on December 18 and forms Spring, an applied research joint venture with IBM Italia | Mandelli | [4] |
| c. 1990 | ★The NC maker Fidia begins building milling machines under its own brand in San Mauro Torinese and moves into high-speed milling (HSM) machinesFidia says “the early '90s,” and a December 1994 article says “four years ago.” In 1994 it had about 180 employees and subsidiaries in six places, including Beijing | Fidia (San Mauro Torinese)high-speed milling machines | [15][16] |
| 1990 | Jobs brings out the Jomach 245, with a 37 kW spindle and automatic head changing, extending its range to heavy-cutting 5-axis machines | JobsJomach 245 | [18] |
| 1993 | MCM brings out the CLOCK HP, a horizontal MC with a high-speed spindle and fast tool changes | MCMCLOCK HP | [17] |
High speed, 5-axis and restructuring1994–
| Year | Event | Maker / model | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 1994 | In the worldwide recession of 1993 Mandelli runs into trouble, and the state places Mandelli industriale under extraordinary administration (amministrazione straordinaria) (January 15; Mandelli S.p.A. followed on March 15). The same year, Mandelli is taken over by a group of Italian entrepreneurs | Mandelli | [24][4] |
| 1995 | Mandelli shows the medium and large MCs STORM and ROCK at EMO Milano in May. Jobs brings out B.U.S.S., which changes heads automatically to go from roughing to finishing in a single setup, and MCM delivers an FMS of four 5-axis cells to Dassault Aviation | Mandelli, Jobs, MCMSTORM, ROCK; B.U.S.S.; Clock 900 Mirror | [4][18][17] |
| 1997 | MCM brings out FORERUNNER, an MC with axes driven by linear motors | MCMFORERUNNER | [17] |
| 2000 | ★Jobs brings out LinX Compact, the first model of LinX, its large high-speed milling machines with axes driven by linear motors. Blitz and Design were added in 2002, with interchangeable spindles | JobsLinX Compact | [18][25] |
| 2000 | Fidia lists on the Milano stock exchange. In September an extraordinary shareholders' meeting had decided to begin the procedure for listing on the Nuovo Mercato, a new market for growth companiesCompany documents say only “listed since 2000.” In the stock tables of an October 2001 newspaper it appears among the Nuovo Mercato stocks | Fidia | [26][27] |
| 2001 | MCM brings out a 5-axis MC with a tilting head, and Jet Five, which cuts large aircraft structural parts with linear motors | MCMJet Five | [17] |
| July 2002 | Rambaudi of Rivoli (186 employees) ceases trading, and in September Sachman, a maker of milling machines and MCs, buys it | Rambaudi, Sachman (Reggio Emilia) | [6][5] |
| December 2002 | A US trade journal reports on BI-MU 2002. Mandelli Sistemi, part of the Riello group, shows the 5-axis THUNDER and others, and Jobs had delivered about 650 5-axis machines worldwide | Mandelli Sistemi, Jobs | [25] |
| 2005 | Mandelli brings out the SPARK X, a horizontal 5-axis MC with all three linear axes on the tool side and the workpiece on a rotary table fixed to the bed | MandelliSPARK X | [4] |
| 2008 | Mandelli wins an order for a multi-machine line of RUMBLE 5-axis machines to cut 6 m long titanium parts for the Boeing 787 | MandelliRUMBLE | [4] |
| October 2009 | Jobs absorbs the Sachman business (October 1) | Jobs, Sachman | [18] |
| 2012 | Jobs takes a majority of Sigma (Vigevano), a maker of vertical MCs, and FFG Europe is formed, bringing together Jobs, Sachman, Rambaudi and Sigma (part of Taiwan's Fair Friend group). In 2014–15 production of Sachman, Rambaudi and Sigma is concentrated in Piacenza | Jobs, Sigma, FFG Europe | [18] |
| 2012 | Fidia's Chinese subsidiary Shenyang Fidia NC&M makes and sells Fidia-designed NC controls and milling machines in China. The joint development with Shenyang Machine Tool received a subsidy from the city of Shenyang | Fidia, Shenyang Machine Tool (China) | [28] |
| 2014 | The RIFA group takes control of MCM | MCM, RIFA | [17] |
| November 2020 | After financial difficulties from 2019, Fidia applies for a court-supervised restructuring (concordato) on November 13. The court approved it on June 24, 2022 | Fidia | [29] |
| June 2021 | Mandelli joins the Allied International group | Mandelli, Allied International | [4] |
| February 2023 | ★Japan's Nidec acquires all the shares of PAMA (about 430 people), a maker of horizontal boring and milling machines founded in 1926, and its affiliates (February 1) | Nidec (Japan), PAMA (Rovereto)Horizontal boring mills, MCs | [30][31] |
FAQ
- Which was Italy's first machining center?
- We have found no source that settles it. Mandelli's company history calls its EGO of the late 1960s “the first machine with the basic features of a machining center.” Olivetti, in a newspaper advertisement of September 1967, promoted as “machining centers” the Auctor Multiplex, which selects automatically from 12 tools, and the horizontal Horizon, which holds up to 31. We could not confirm which came first.
- Why are there so many machining center makers in Piacenza?
- Mandelli (1932), MCM (1978) and Jobs (1978) are all Piacenza companies, and production of FFG Europe's Sachman, Rambaudi and Sigma was also concentrated in Piacenza in 2014–15. However, we did not find any source this time that directly explains why they gathered in Piacenza. The 1991 UNIDO report says that 71% of the Italian machine tool industry is in the regions of Lombardia and Piemonte (Piacenza is a city in Emilia-Romagna, which borders both).
- What kind of company is Fidia?
- It is an NC control company founded in Torino in 1974 to cut the curved surfaces of dies and molds. From around 1990 it built its own milling machines and became a maker of high-speed milling machines. It is one of the few companies that can make the NC control, the machine and the software all in-house, but it filed for a restructuring procedure in 2020, which was approved in 2022.
- Are there links between Italian makers of milling machines and MCs and Japan?
- Mandelli's company history records a production license agreement with Amada in 1980 (not confirmed in Amada's own records). In 2023 Japan's Nidec bought PAMA, a maker of horizontal boring mills, and PAMA also handles Nidec Machine Tool's MCs.
What's next and related pages
Sources
Newspapers (La Stampa, Il Piccolo, l'Unità), the official gazette (Gazzetta Ufficiale), British and American trade journals, Olivetti's in-house magazine, the 1909 US report and the 1911 exhibition catalogue were checked in Internet Archive scans, patents in the US patent gazette, and UN reports, company annual reports and histories, and company announcements on their own pages, all in October 2026. Articles checked only through the indexes of British and American trade journals (article text not seen) are marked as such in the source titles. Events whose only basis is the company's own history are distinguished in the text with “according to the company's history.” “Frame” is the Internet Archive scan sequence number (n-number), and the numbers for the UNIDO report are PDF pages (the same as the printed pages).
- United States Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Manufactures, Machine-tool trade in Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Russia, and Netherlands, with supplementary reports on Italy and France, Government Printing Office (1910; the Italian factories were inspected in May 1909)p. 165, 166, 168, 169
- Esposizione internazionale delle industrie e del lavoro, Torino 1911, Catalogo generale ufficiale (1911) (numbers are scan frames, Internet Archive n numbers)Frames 94, 95
- Engineering vol.184 no.4765 (London, July 5, 1957), “Olivetti” (numbers are scan frames)Frames 9
- Mandelli Sistemi, “Azienda” (company history, 1932–2021)
- l'Unità, September 5, 2002, “Sachman: concluso l'acquisto della Rambaudi”
- La Stampa, July 4, 2002, “Chiude la Rambaudi”
- Rivista Olivetti, January–June 1953 issues, p.56 “La nuova Fresatrice-Pialla Olivetti FP4” and p.66 “Il Pantografo Fotoelettrico Olivetti MR 3” (bound volume of the in-house magazine 1947–1953, scan of a copy held by the Associazione Archivio Storico Olivetti) (numbers are scan frames)Frames 991, 993
- Machinery and Production Engineering vol.110 (January–June 1967), index entry “Rambaudi Ramcop-3D copy milling machine,” p.1320
- La Stampa, September 17, 1967, full-page advertisement of Olivetti's numerical control division, “I Machining Centers della Olivetti”
- La Stampa, October 10, 1968, special feature on the 6th BI-MU (machine tool biennial) (remarks by UCIMU's press office; Rambaudi and Philips advertisements)
- Il Piccolo, October 15, 1968, “T.E.O.M.R. alla Biennale”
- Machinery and Production Engineering vol.115 (July–December 1969), index entries “Rambaudi Ramcop 3D-1000 hydraulic copy” and “Ram-Mill bed-type,” p.1028
- US Patent 3,710,659, “Automatically controlled tool holding device,” Ing. C. Olivetti & C. S.p.A. (inventors Elio Pagella and Carlo Guerci; Italian application March 4, 1969; US application March 2, 1970; granted January 16, 1973)
- Machinery and Production Engineering vol.120 (1972), index entry “Rambaudi Ram-Matic bed-type vertical milling machine,” p.915
- Fidia S.p.A., “Società” (company profile)
- La Stampa, December 5, 1994, company profile “Fidia: scolpire l'innovazione” (page produced jointly with the Unione Industriale di Torino)
- MCM Group, “History” (company history, 1978–2024)
- Jobs S.p.A., “Azienda” (company history, 1979–2015)
- Mariangela Pattarozzi, “Composition of Italian Robotics Industry,” Media Duemila No.13 (January 1986), English translation in US JPRS, West Europe Report: Science and Technology, JPRS-WST-86-018 (April 28, 1986), pp.17–18 (DTIC ADA348256)p. 18
- Sottsass Associati 1980:1999 frammenti (1999), catalogue of works: “controllo numerico Quasar, Mandelli, 1981”
- Pietro Carnaghi S.p.A., “About us” (company history)
- American Machinist vol.131 (1987), index entry “GE, Mandelli become licensees of Molins' patents on FMSs,” Oct p.21
- UNIDO Secretariat, The World Machine-Tool Industry. Background paper, ID/WG.514/4 (June 28, 1991; Consultation on the Capital Goods Industry, Praha)p. 38, 39, 63
- Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana, March 22, 1994, n.67 (ministerial decree placing Mandelli S.p.A. under extraordinary administration, March 15, 1994)
- Thomas Grasson, “Boosting productivity the Italian way,” American Machinist, December 1, 2002
- Fidia, “Company profile” (company presentation for investors, March 2013), p.3
- “Fidia punta al Nuovo Mercato,” La Stampa (Torino daily), September 27, 2000
- Fidia S.p.A., Bilancio 2012 (annual report)
- Fidia S.p.A., Prospetto Informativo (June 19, 2025), 14.1 “Il Concordato”
- Nidec Corporation announcement, “Nidec Completes the Acquisition of the Shares of Italian Machine Tool Manufacturer PAMA and Its Affiliates” (February 2, 2023)
- PAMA S.p.A. (Rovereto) official website (showing that it is under Nidec's direction; Nidec Machine Tool's MVR-HX)
- Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali press release, “Ivrea è il 54° sito UNESCO italiano” (July 1, 2018)
- Associazione Archivio Storico Olivetti (Ivrea)
- BI-MU (Biennale internazionale della macchina utensile) official website