Thirty years and a desire to improve, to evolve, to grow further: this is the atmosphere we breathed in San Giorgio della Richinvelda, a few kilometers from Pordenone, in the headquarters of the well-known manufacturer of drying plants.
Not many years have passed since our last visit, yet at Termolegno something has changed. Or better, a lot has changed. We found a larger, brighter company, with a layout designed for maximum efficiency, new machines, a decidedly different, positive atmosphere… in short, if it hadn’t been for the smiles of Irene and Ilaria Fornasier, we would have thought we had reached the wrong establishment! Our friend Agostino Fornasier, founder of this company that has been designing and building drying plants in over 80 countries around the world for exactly thirty years, can only be happy and proud that his daughters – alongside him – have brought new ideas, new energy, a new vision.
Actually, they have been in the company for many years, Irene in charge for management and administration, Ilaria for sales. A presence that year after year has made its weight felt and that has opened the doors of this new season.
From left: Ilaria, Agostino and Irene Fornasier.
“We are a small family business, but extremely vital,” Ilaria Fornasier told us as she welcomed us. “We still have a lot to say, and we are investing to build a future that is the normal continuation of a company that has always created opportunities and quality. At Termolegno, we continuously improve each industrial process, while paying attention to all organizational details that reduce time, costs and waste.
We continue to invest above all in our production area, which today has its “core” in a new five-axis machining center in which we have brought together processes that until yesterday were entrusted to different machines. In addition, the installation of other interconnected machinery, such as welding robots, allows us to foster a lean and efficient process.”
“We have a clear goal: invest to enhance our peculiarities and manage larger production volumes. Our modern and sustainable plants and equipment allow us to offer quality solutions in a short time in the many markets where we are present and focusing on products that are less and less energy-intensive”, Irene Fornasier added. “Energy saving is a fundamental aspect for us, and the installation of a photovoltaic system at our plant allows us to cover our energy needs, pursuing our commitment to economic-social-environmental sustainability that we are happy will be welcomed by our entire team, for an increasingly sustainable future”.
In short, thirty years of honorable career have borne good fruit…
“Absolutely,” replied Ilaria Fornasier. “Termolegno is a company that has always experienced a growth trend, and the past few years have given us really important satisfaction. 2023 was a record year for us, thanks to the forward-looking strategy we have pursued in previous years to be able to expand our presence and recognition in old and new markets.
We have the satisfaction of collaborating with many customers, all over the world, with whom we have a relationship of trust. A continuity that makes us proud, thanks to which we can work on improved and proactive solutions for market changes”.
What if you had to summarize the “meaning” of these first thirty years?
“Last September we organized an event, precisely to celebrate this milestone. We called it “Be part of us” for a specific reason: Agostino, our father, taught us how important it is to be together and share projects and goals with our employees, collaborators, customers and suppliers.
Thirty years in which we have built what it takes for wood to continue to be that splendid material that has accompanied humanity since dawn”.
“An evolution that sees the growing weight of two concepts that we have already mentioned, namely energy saving and sustainability,” said Irene Fornasier. “Drying is one of the most energy-intensive aspects for a company that works with wood and that is why, year after year, we have built solutions that are always innovative: compared to traditional systems, we can guarantee a reduction in consumption that can reach 35 percent, thanks to a series of extensive interventions and recovery systems that we have been constantly improving for about twenty years now.
And in 2024 we have developed a new technology that reduces consumption by up to 60 percent! We are still in the testing phase, although advanced, and our monitoring systems report in detail truly remarkable performance and a very, very important cut in consumption, always allowing us to be able to guarantee maximum customization of the drying cycles, because the reality of these years is the maximum customization depending on the wood essence that will have to be treated, always and in any case.
The challenge that Termolegno has set itself in these first three decades, in a nutshell, is to reduce the time and costs of drying, increasing the quality of the result, in order to optimize waste and achieve greater efficiency in the use of wood.
A job that we have learned to do very well in the “countries of origin of wood”, but that we are increasingly bringing to places where we talk about engineered wood or wood for construction, the new territories where advanced and technically impeccable drying has a strong contribution to make”.
“Termolegno is moving in the new ways of using wood that share a greater “respect” for this natural material”, added Ilaria Fornasier. “We know we are part of all this, a participation that is not only de facto, but that we want to make as constructive as possible. For this reason, our “Be Part of Us” event, in addition to being a party, was a way to confront each other in more comprehensive terms, looking at the supply chain as a whole, feeling part of a world that comes from afar and that will go even further in the future.
A change that began some time ago, which has involved us and which leads us every day to consider how drying should look at the complexity of the supply chain of which it is an integral part, doing everything in our power to convey our values, without neglecting attention to every detail”.
Do you feel you are on the right track?
“What we do every day, our plants, the satisfaction of our customers confirm this. We work to be different, not only in what we build, but also before and after, in the relationships, in the perspectives we share with our customers. We firmly believe that together we can achieve better results. 30 years, the value of growing together, streams of trust and collaboration that flow between people and companies, helping generate new ideas and converging energy and enthusiasm to make them happen.
And look, these are not clichés: more than 120 people from about twenty different countries attended our event. It was an opportunity to confront each other, exchanging ideas and reflections. With us there were the experts in forest certification and management of FSC Italia, technicians and managers of our client companies who brought their experience in the field of drying on different essences and types of products, engineers who support us in our research and development phases and representatives of the Italy Wood Forest Cluster.
It is the willingness to bring these very different experiences together that adds a lot of value to our product, which allows us to be protagonists of the treatment of wood to make it better and more suitable for the processes it will be subject to.
One of our long-standing customers also participated in those days, the owner of a well-known company with whom we have been collaborating since the early years of our company’s life: he told those present about the added value we represent for his work and this filled us with satisfaction, confirming that we have done a lot and that we can still do a lot, in a dialogue with customers that goes far beyond the simple sale.
After all, these are the greatest teachings that Agostino, our father, gives us every day, the passion and responsibility to move in a world that is still very male-centric, although even in the sawmill or in primary operations there are more and more women, especially in Europe”.
Agostino must be happy to have you by his side…
“He is proud of us, as we put our heart, all our passion and sensitivity into every phase of the business, especially in commercial development and after-sales, which has become crucial in the relationship with our customers,” Irene Fornasier told us.
And the next thirty years?
“We will always be ourselves, that’s for sure”, they answered with one voice. “Wood is and will remain at the center of our past and our future. We will continue to believe in what was born from our history, convinced that the drying process is substantial in the wood supply chain and that it must continue to evolve in the direction of a material that has a great past behind it, but also a splendid future yet to be discovered”.
by Luca Rossetti
termolegno.com
termolegno.com
