In Italy, there are ‘Common Good Companies’ set towards building a healthy and shared future. This is the case of the historic company Loccioni, a Made in Italy excellence and world leader in quality, safety and sustainability measurement and control systems of products and industrial processes.
Its story begins when Enrico Loccioni, born in 1949 in Serra San Quirico (AN), the son of farmers and born on a farm without electricity and tap water, not yet 18, invents a system to bring water from the home well to the stables.
The importance of an encounter
In 1968, Loccioni founded General Impianti, an electrical plant engineering business in Angeli di Rosora (AN). However, the turning point came ‘only’ in 1985 after Loccioni met the great industrialist and patron from the Marche region, Aristide Merloni, who would inspire him throughout his career.
“The passion and style he conveyed were those of someone who sees a territory taking off, of someone whose goal is to encourage other entrepreneurs to weave a cultural and productive network that can help develop a city, a province, a region,” this is how Enrico Loccioni tells about the first time he met Aristide “I recognised that passion and drive; they are the most beautiful part of being an entrepreneur”.
From home appliances to automotive
That year, Merloni Elettrodomestici asked Loccioni for an innovative solution to improve the production process and quality of the Margherita washing machines. As a result, the Loccioni team patented a system that reduced product defects from 15% to 4%. Today, this technology is mainly used in the automotive sector. Loccioni, in fact, carries out tests under all operating conditions and checks that all the elements required to build electric cars – batteries, axles, electric motors, fuel cells, power modules and inverters – work as designed.
Branching out into healthcare
Technological innovation, then, but not only. In 2000, driven by the willingness to create value for people and the territory, Loccioni invested in the HumanCare project by creating a business sector dedicated to health and nutrition. In 2006, he developed Apoteca Chemo, a system that automates the preparation of intravenous chemotherapy compounds, in collaboration with the Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria delle Marche.
Commitment to the region
Enrico Loccioni, who likes to describe himself as an ‘electrician farmer’, received an Honorary Degree in Innovation Technology in 2004. In 2008, the Archivio Storico Olivetti Association named him ‘Olivetti Entrepreneur of the Year’ for the attention he dedicated to the community and the territory. Every year, the company hosts a thousand students for training and orientation meetings.
An interesting fact about the Loccioni reality is that, on average, two of the 450 collaborators – that’s what they call themselves in the company – set up their own businesses every year. However, for Loccioni, this does not represent the loss of an investment but another growth opportunity for Angeli di Rosora, the village where the company is based.
The Leaf Community: an ecological community idea
In 2008, Loccioni set up the Leaf Community, an open-air sustainability laboratory, to develop technologies that reduce environmental impact and improve comfort. Today, they are a 100% electric smart grid that produces more renewable energy than it consumes.
Today, the Loccioni Group, which maintains its headquarters in Angeli di Rosora, is a world-leading Open Company. It has 450 employees (the average age is 34, half of them university graduates), major customers worldwide, and collaborates with the most prestigious universities and schools. Its turnover is EUR 120 million! “We are working for the next 50 years,” says Enrico Loccioni, who was made a Cavaliere del Lavoro by Sergio Mattarella in 2015.
So congratulations to those who dream, innovate, put people at the centre and take Italy into the future!
Learn about other Made in Italy excellence of the Marche region.