Bonfiglioli

Bonfiglioli is an Italian manufacturing company found by Clementino Bonfiglioli in 1956. In response to a growing demand from engineering companies for spare parts and components for agricultural machinery and motorcycles, two rapidly developing areas at the time.
In a few years, he put into practice his decision to develop and produce all-new products, and designed and patented the RAE series of two-stage planetary gearboxes. Distributed first locally and then nationwide.
In 1975, Bonfiglioli’s success led to the acquisition of Trasmital, a company that is now a leader in planetary gearboxes for excavators, road construction machines and wind turbines. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Bonfiglioli Group expanded into the international market and opened directly controlled subsidiaries and production plant in a number of countries. The new millennium saw yet more additions to the Group with the acquisition of Vectron, a leader in electronic control systems, and Tecnoingranaggi, a manufacturer of precision, low backlash gearboxes.
When Clementino Bonfiglioli died in 2010, his daughter Sonia, already a driving force in management, assumed control.
Bonfiglioli today is a consolidated group of companies with 16 directly controlled subsidiaries, 10 production plant, not more than 5,000 employees, a sales network in 80 countries. It designs, manufactures and distributes a complete range of gear motors, drive systems and planetary gearboxes for industrial processes, automation, mobile and renewable energy applications - e.g. wind energy, photovoltaic systems (inverters), bio gas generation. Bonfiglioli offers tailored solutions, whose strength lies in the high technology content of each product and the careful integration of different technologies.
Clementino Bonfiglioli
Clementino Bonfiglioli was born in Bologna in 1928. Having lost his mother, he was raised from birth by his grandparents, while his father emigrated, only to return 10 years later. He was a victim of war and Clementino was left alone. He committed himself to studying engineering, and graduated at the "Aldini Valeriani" Istituto Tecnico. As designer and tester he began to work in important Bolognese gearing companies where he very soon came to appreciate the importance of the growth that the sector could benefit from thanks to the development of automatic machines in the Bologna area. Having decided to strike out and set up on his own, "COSTRUZIONI MECCANICHE BONFIGLIOLI" is born in 1956. Experience and intuition led Clementino to design and patent new gearboxes, such as the 2-stage planetary type, which were to become key products for the next 15 years establishing and consolidating BONFIGLIOLI RIDUTTORI.
The origins of Bonfiglioli
Bonfiglioli Riduttori was established on 16 April 1956 to put into practice the business ideas of Clementino Bonfiglioli, who brought to his new company years of experience in the design and manufacture of gearboxes for farm machinery and motorcycles (including legendary names like Ducati, Gilera and Moto Morini).The new company was baptised Costruzioni Meccaniche Bonfiglioli and for the first few years of its existence concentrated on the production of gearboxes for the two familiar areas of farm machinery and motorcycles, both major industries on the Bolognese industrial landscape at that time.

Towards the mid 1960s, however, a profound transformation began to sweep through the local area: the automation industry rapidly assumed major proportions and a large number of packaging machine manufacturers established themselves in and around Bologna. The area soon became the centre of the world’s packaging industry and won for itself the nickname of "Packaging Valley".Bonfiglioli was quick to see the great opportunity that this dramatic change presented and began to design and make a range of power transmission gearboxes that rapidly set new standards for the automation industry.
In particular, Bonfiglioli designed and patented a new two-stage planetary gearbox which proved so successful that no improvements were required for the next fifteen years.
Growth accelerated even further when Bonfiglioli intelligently extended its product range by acquiring other strategic companies. The acquisition in 1975 of Trasmital, a specialist manufacturer of planetary gearboxes for earth moving machinery based in Forlì, allowed Bonfiglioli to become a leader in mobile drive trains.
The Bonfiglioli Group goes international
Bonfiglioli decided to expand exports in the early 1980s and set up a global sales network revolving around subsidiaries and distributors in Spain, France, the UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Germany.
Bonfiglioli India was established in 1999 as another step in the strategic process of internationalisation begun twenty years previously. Today, this plant in Chennai (Madras) employs over 600 people.
New challenges for the Group
In 2001 another strategic intuition led to the acquisition of Vectron Elektronik GMBH, a German company specialising in the design and manufacture of high technology inverter drives. This move heralded the start of a process of industrial development that in only a few years established the Bonfiglioli Group as a leading player in mechatronics. Vectron's arrival in the Bonfiglioli Group permitted the development of new inverters that have proved highly successful and gained an excellent reputation in mechanical and industrial automation applications.
Two years later Bonfiglioli launched its campaign to penetrate the US market and opened new offices in Hebron to develop relations with key account customers like John Deere and Caterpillar and to expand sales generally on this strategic area.
Shortly afterwards, new subsidiaries were opened in China, Singapore, Brazil, Italy and Vietnam too. The BEST project (Bonfiglioli Excellence Service Team) was also launched in 2003 to distribute Bonfiglioli products and services.
In line with the policy of consolidating Bonfiglioli’s role as complete system supplier, in 2004 the Group acquired Tecnoingranaggi, another Bologna-based company specialising in the design and production of reduced backlash planetary gearboxes.
Later, faced with increased demand from a constantly growing market, Bonfiglioli took the decision to expand its production capacity by opening another two factories, the first in Slovakia (2005) and the second in Vietnam (2008).
The Bonfiglioli Group today
Today, the Bonfiglioli Group has 10 production plant and 16 directly owned subsidiaries around the world, employing a total of around 3,300 people.
See also
*List of Italian companies

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