Fifty years have passed since Nastroflex was established. Half a century of experience and success in one of Italy’s top industrial districts, making the Palù family company one of the big names in the abrasive sector, as a result of an effective combination of tradition and innovation. We talked about the Nastroflex experience with Italo Rossetto, sales manager.
“In the past ten years, we have seen significant investments, especially in automation. In the finishing area, we have moved from mostly manual operations to large industrial lines. This has encouraged us to improve, to raise the bar and to design more and more advanced and performing products, also taking into account the enhancements to machinery.
To do this, we are pushing hard not only on a range of products, but on our philosophy that we can sum up with one word: multiconcept, meaning that we approach our work like tailors who create a dress to measure for each operation”.
What does it mean to make innovation in the abrasive industry?
“Innovation in our industry is a very different process compared to other segments: in the abrasive business, innovation is not disruptive, it is constant evolution. For us, innovation means leveling off irregularities. The real innovation for Nastroflex is the multiconcept philosophy I have already mentioned, providing our customers with the right products at the right time. In our business, innovation is specialization, and specialization in recent years means finding more and more specific applications. We have progressed towards an increasingly stable product, combining high sanding speed with strong resistance. All of this while keeping an eye on machinery evolution: twenty years ago, we worked at a speed of twenty meters per minute, now we have increased to sixty! Speed has tripled, and of course, the belts from twenty years ago would not be strong enough to bear such pressure”.
Could we define innovation in the abrasive field as “consequent innovation”?
“Partially, but not always. To make an example, we might call “consequent innovation” what we did in 1992, when we introduced micro grain 1200 to meet the request of a customer. In that case, we had to develop an ad-hoc solution for a specific type of machine.
Generally speaking, we can say that “running after the market”, finding answers to the problems submitted by customers is essential: we do what must be done when we find a way to make progress with the new technology that our customers have decided to use. Besides this trend, there is a second one, much more “active” if you want, based on our determination to be proactive players in our market, not just seizing opportunities, but trying to create new ones every day, and even anticipate needs that will become popular and widespread”.
Which product best represents the Nastroflex philosophy, in your opinion?
“If I should pick one, I would say “Lonbrade”, also known as “L312T”, our ace in the hole. It’s an abrasive material with exceptional quality, as witnessed by many attempts of imitation. It’s a “long abrasion” product (that’s where the “Lonbrade” name comes from, Editor’s note), with anti-clogging properties, ensuring longer persistence on the abrasive material. This product has a much long lifetime also on very hard surfaces, with consistent cutting capacity and extraordinary finishing quality.
For “softer” surfaces, instead, I would mention “LC412S”, a film substrate backed with paper or tissue, offering an ideal solution for polyurethane or polyacrylic coatings, ensuring optimal results in all moisture conditions”.
So, innovation for you is a matter of “leveling off irregularities”. What’s your approach to change?
“We are not afraid to challenge ourselves, to search for new solutions, as we know that, in our business, you don’t have to make a revolution, but rather progressive improvement. From a technical point of view, we are very keen on cost-benefit balance, with an eye to energy topics. We are not afraid of change, but we want to take each step with caution. From a sales point of view, instead, we are more conventional in a positive way, of course: we believe in personal relations, it is important to meet with customers and let them “touch and feel” what we can offer. When this emergency is over, our sales activity will hit the road again, not just through a PC or smartphone. In this industry, digital tools are useful, but they cannot replace human interaction…”.
