Almost 5,000 people celebrated SACMI’S 105th ‘birthday’. Early in the morning, hundreds of citizens began gathering, eager to take part in an Open Day intended to give everyone a close look at the ‘SACMI world’: a world that spans from manufacturing to the cutting-edge research with which SACMI is building the factories of the future.

Guided tours of SACMI's production and innovation hubs

The main event of the day was a 13-stop tour of the factory to explore key areas of SACMI production and innovation:

From the

Rigid Packaging Lab

where new low-environmental-impact caps in cellulose fiber are being designed

to the

Department that assembles and tests the industrial presses

used to make every day ceramic and metal items.

Needless to say, the tour also covered AI and, more generally, advanced Quality Control systems that simplify workers’ tasks, taking process control into the realm of consistent, worry-free quality.

The Ceramic and Whiteware Labs also played key roles. The former showcased novel uses for ceramic, such as the large decorated slabs that can, with SACMI Continua+ technology, be transformed into valuable kitchen tops, tables, etc. or the latest super-thin, sustainable, easy-to-lay tiles that offer new opportunities in furnishing.

SACMI, from workshop to worldwide success

To bring these 105th celebrations to a close, these days also saw the presentation of the book “SACMI: from workshop to worldwide success Origins of an extraordinary cooperative experience”.

The event saw the writer, Valter Galavotti, together with two former and current SACMI employees, Leo Monduzzi and Cecilia Palmieri and several local and regional economic institutions.  

Through meticulous research, the author delves into the historical roots of SACMI, founded in 1919 on the initiative of nine young mechanics and blacksmiths from Imola during the harsh post-WW1 years.

A documented analysis of the social, human and moral reasons behind the company’s founding illustrates SACMI's close ties with Imola and its flourishing cooperative movement.

“We’re especially proud”, pointed out SACMI’s President Paolo Mongardi in his opening remarks, “to have turned the spotlight on, for this anniversary, a new interpretation of SACMI's origins and how it went from being a small workshop to a huge industrial concern while remaining rooted in the communities from which it sprang. We’re not just talking about the history of a company, our history, but about the always-relevant values and principles of being a cooperative, of looking to the future and the coming generations.”