"Automec" Gearmotors in Milan since 1989
A history handed down for generations (1974-1989)
Today, Automec is not only a company but it is the result of an adventure started in 1975 by Giovanni Franco Felice Maggi, my grandfather. In all these years we have had the fortune to work with great craftsmen, to collaborate with important companies, to experiment innovative technologies and techniques. We have won and lost, we have had moments of joy and worry, we have been lucky and unlucky. And all this has turned into a huge experience. When you deal with us, you will not only have to deal with a gearmotor manufacturing industry, but with values, with a school, with a work that combines Italian ingenuity with the industriousness typical of Milan.
As I mentioned above, our story begins in 1975 when my grandfather Giovanni had the idea to start producing gearmotors. He opened his workshop in a basement in via Soffredini in Milan, where he started working together with my great-grandfather and my grandmother. When my mother and uncle were kids, they also helped with the small family business, when they didn’t attend school. As soon as the business started to work, they left the basement and moved to a small workshop in Via Apelle, also in Milan.
The turning point (1989-2011)
In 1989 there was a new important turning point. The work needed an extra push and so my grandfather partnered up with Emilio Zerega, one of his competitors, and founded Automec. Emilio took his son Fabio with him and assigned him the strategic role of salesman, a first step for the shift from craftsmanship to business.
From 1989 to 2000 Automec grew into a small structured company. Since I was a boy, I used to go there in the summer to help my grandfather and when I started engineering school, I used to attend school in the morning and, in the afternoon, I went to the company to help. After finishing my studies, I became a full-time member of the family business.
In 2004 the company left the Milanese headquarters to move to Via Daniele Manin in the busy Sesto San Giovanni, just outside Milan itself.
In 2011 there was an event that shocked us deeply: Giovanni died.
A strategic acquisition (2011-today)
My mother and I didn’t want all my grandfather’s work to be lost. We rolled up our sleeves, started looking for new clients to join the existing ones and we studied new strategies to give new life to the company.
In 2014, with the project to internalize all the work, we acquired our own supplier, the small artisan company of Grazia Rosito. Thus, it was born the New Rosito, now incorporated into Automec, which allowed us to become independent in the production of rotors.
In 2015 Automec moved to its current headquarters in via Muggiasca 19, a few miles from the east orbital road of Milan. Since then the activity has grown and has been structured to face the challenges of a market that is no longer just Milanese or Italian, but global.
Davide
