From 9th to 13th October 2018, fieramilano Rho will host the 31st edition of BI-MU, presenting a special focus on the Internet of Things, big data, cyber security, cloud computing, augmented reality, system integrators, additive manufacturing, vision e systems controls.

Over 850 enterprises have already registered as exhibitors, 19% more compared with the last edition of BI-MU. OF these 850 companies, 343 are from abroad, coming from 24 different countries. These are very positive figures for an exhibition getting ready to welcome over 70,000 visitors from Italy and overseas.

Even the total booked exhibit area has been increasing: to date, it is 12% more than in June 2016 A decidedly significant growth that follows the trend of the Italian market that has reached the top of the consumption value.

But the most significant figure for the exhibition comes from the registration of new exhibitors that represent 27% of the total. Numbers that show how the bets of the organizers, who have expanded the technological repertoire of the fair “opening” to the world of digital manufacturing and enabling technologies, as well as consulting, has well intercepted the interest of the new manufacturing players, and not only , who answered numerous.

The new interpretation of the event has found the full appreciation of the companies belonging both to the traditionally present sectors at the fair and to new sectors such as the IoT, exposed in the Fabbricafutura area and consulting, present in the Box Consulting area. Sponsored by SIRI, it is then Robot-Planet, an area of innovation, dedicated to robots, industrial and collaborative, integrators and automation systems. Among the novelties also BI-MU Startupper, dedicated to young innovators and new companies engaged in the development of products and projects related to the world of production systems and metal processing. BI-MU Startupper will allow BI-MU to transform itself into a field of comparison between consolidated industrial models and new business visions.

To these areas will be added: Club Addittive Technologies edited by AITA Italian Association on Addittive Technologies; the Fluid Power area that will showcase the best of the systems and components for the transmission of mechanical power and fluid dynamics; Focus Meccatronica; The World of Surface Finishing, dedicated to the most qualified offer of machines and systems for surface finishing and treatment.

For the first time in its long tradition of B2B trade show, BI-MU will combine the exhibition with a cultural, thematic dimension, developed not only through the “classic” conference programme, but also thanks to a rich agenda of side events that will enliven BI-MUpiù.

As a real arena set up in Hall 13 of the Exhibition, throughout the trade show, BI-MUpiù will propose: meetings, one-to-one discussions, performances and insights offered by the organisers and by the exhibitors. Besides the cultural insight events (one every day) arranged by Exhibition Organisers in the BI- MUpiù area that will welcome up to 100 people, exhibitors will have the opportunity to present their best product offering in 20 minutes’ time

The program of events is still under definition.

Following the acquisition of Novero by the Marcegaglia group we interviewed Roberto Ferrari, chief operations officer of Marcegaglia carbon steel tube division.

Marcegaglia is a leading company in the world of steel: how does the purchase of Novero strengthen its position and which development opportunities generate the new large production capacity in the sector of drawn tubes? These are operations aimed at increasing the production capacity of the group, and of Marcegaglia Carbon Steel, in particular, of the production of drawn tubes. Within the network Marcegaglia, tubes are processed at the establishment of Boltiere, realization of very high production performances (only in 2017 it registered a production level equal to six times the Novero output). Starting from these results we felt the need to expand production capacity and the group opted for the choice to acquire Novero SpA. Our goal is to get to produce 100 thousand tons of cold drawn tubes in Italy. Moreover, as emerged during due diligence, the operation assumes an important strategic value since Novero is already a customer of Marcegaglia Casalmaggiore, which produces the rough-hewn tubes that feed both the Boltiere and Novero production units. This is a positive choice in terms of production verticalization which, thanks to Novero’s planned production increase, allows a reduction in the costs of Marcegaglia Casalmaggiore.

Novero is based in Rivoli (TO): what are the consequences of this acquisition for the Piedmont area? Marcegaglia also has a factory in Dusino San Michele: what role does Piedmont play in the company’s production strategies? The acquisitions that contributed to tripling the production of the Dusino San Michele plant have in turn determined an increase in the number of collaborators. On this basis, even the Marcegaglia-Novero operation could generate an increase in the workforce. We believe that production in Piedmont is important for localization, even if both companies are heavily looking for exportations.

The steel world is getting ready to face new challenges, first and foremost that of tariffs: what are the possible scenarios in your opinion? On several occasions, our group has expressed itself against the protectionist positions that with the imposition of duties on aluminum and steel favor producers, as well as risk damaging heavily the occupation in our country. For our part, we work annually over five million tons of steel – we asked Federacciai to use the safeguard clause, applying a “global quota” to the import of hot coils in Europe in compensation of that direct in the United States, while in Eurofer it opts for a “per country” quota, which would penalize converters like us, raising prices for the processing industry. This is the reason that has generated our dissent towards the line that has been imposed in Federacciai, favorable to the introduction of quotas for the importation of steel different from country to country on the basis of the level of importation average in the last three years, as part of the production blocked by American duties (about 25%) will be poured into Europe. Marcegaglia is in principle opposed to duties, especially if practiced to favor producers. We must not lose sight of the fact that Italy is in deficit on the production-transformation scale, in the sense that it produces much less steel than what it transforms, with extra-European purchasing channels active for years. Protectionism usually leads to higher inflation and, therefore, to consumer harm.

Following the acquisition, a greater production of drawn tubes was announced, for a turnover exceeding 40 million euros. Why do drawn tubes play such an important role in the steel and tube industry? The drawn tube, from ERW welded pipe, is registering interesting growth rates as the demand for this product has increased by the automotive, cylindrical and many other sectors. Moreover, thanks to the innovations of the process, today it is possible to realize very particular drawn and very different shapes from the traditional round tube, which respond to the best market demands.

It is the most versatile plastic material known, one of the most used in the world: ranging from the “vinyl” of old records to gutters, from drinking water pipes to electric cables, from windows to packaging film, from clothes to wigs, from industrial warehouses to tensile structures and lorries’ covers. It is PVC, code of  polymer of vinyl chloride (or polyvinylchloride), chemical formula (CH2CHCl) n.

Pure, it is a rigid material; it owes its application versatility to the possibility of being mixed even in high proportions to inorganic compounds and to plasticizing products, which make it flexible and moldable: it can be molded by hot molding in the desired shapes, extruded, calendered or reduced to liquid for coating of fabrics, surfaces, reservoirs, valves, faucets, tanks and artificial textile fibers. It is considered stable and safe in technological applications at room temperature, but extremely dangerous if burned or heated at high temperatures, due to the presence of chlorine in the molecule, which can be released as hydrochloric acid.

A particularly important use of PVC concerns the manufacture of pipes that are used for the transport of compressed air and liquids for industrial use, fundamental in the agricultural and food sector, but also used in construction, automotive, boating, in the building and throughout what concerns the maintenance.

Flexibility and versatility are the basis of the extraordinary use of PVC pipes, in addition to their smooth surface and resistance to operating temperatures ranging from – 5 ° C to + 60 ° C, and in the plasticized version with polyester and fiber reinforcement polyester with an intermediate glue layer: this resistance is essential when cooling liquids, chemical solutions and liquid food, as well as compressed air, must be transported.

The pressure resistance capacity of a PVC pipe has an inverse relation to the diameter dimension, which can vary from 4 to 50 mm for those that are intended for compressed air. In PVC pipes with polyester fiber reinforcement and an intermediate glue layer, however, the pressure remains constant regardless of the diameter, but it is the temperature that has influence.

The compressed air tubes – there are different types of different diameter and length, as well as thickness of the rubber – can be flexible while maintaining the characteristics of reliability, durability and tolerance to high pressure. To manufacture them it is necessary to follow a particular process, which evaluates the rubber that supplies the covering and the fibers placed inside; in particular, the rubber needs a high pressure extrusion process and the same pipe must then be submerged in cold water, so as to harden in a short time.

Flexible PVC pipes have a considerable field of application, especially in industry and in mechanical workshops: for example, compressors for painting car bodywork, in general all types of compressors that need safe and long-lasting interventions.

Written by:

Elsa Fornero (University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto)
Ivan Lagrosa (Bocconi University & IGIER)

The complex relationship between the pension system and the labor market:

Social security reforms focused on increasing the retirement age have often been accompanied by strong criticism and concerns about their possible impact on employment, particularly of young people and women. Both the economic logic and the data show, however, how these fears are not necessarily founded and how are instead appropriate policies aimed at giving sustainability to the system retirement not only through formulas of greater equity within and between generations, but also through measures to make the labor market more inclusive and dynamic.

Demography, economic growth and innovation: a context of complex relationships
The progress in health conditions, the increase in life expectancy and the sharp fall in birth rates have led to a demographic transition that is leading to a partial inversion of the pyramid by age of the population: few young people at the base and an ever-increasing number of senior citizens at the top. (figure 1):

The phenomenon obviously does not concern only our country: according to estimates by Eurostat, in 2080 the share of the European population between 15 and 64 will change from the current two thirds to just over half, to the benefit of the share of people with more than 64 years, which will reach 28.1 percent instead.

While demographic changes are reshaping our society by focusing on the problems affecting relations between generations and migratory phenomena, on the other, low rates of economic growth exacerbate the demographic problem, making it more difficult to finance promised services. in years when everything seemed to have to prosper endlessly. From here, if we restrict the field to the world of pensions, the urgency and the need for structural reforms that improve the interaction between the labor market and the social security system, through the increase in participation rates and investment in capital human, ie the skills and knowledge necessary for productivity growth. In a context of strong technological innovation, the theme of competences will indeed be crucial for guaranteeing good work paths and, therefore, adequate social security benefits. Investments in the training system and, in particular, in continuous training mechanisms will be more than ever necessary to provide workers with the skills required by a continuously – and increasingly rapid – evolving labor market.

Labor market and social security system:
With the introduction of the contributory method of calculating pension benefits, in the absence of a good working life – in terms of quality and continuity – it is impossible to develop a good pension. Two important consequences derive from this consideration: political action must firstly focus on the conditions that favor the employment of the largest possible number of people and, on the other, assist those who have reached retirement age, they bring in an unfortunate work path and therefore a “pension wealth” insufficient to finance an adequate pension. The relationship between the pension system and the labor market is therefore binary: a good labor market, inclusive and dynamic, is the best prerequisite for obtaining adequate pensions; and a good pension system must not penalize work, making early exit (retirement pension) convenient, but rather must encourage employment, obviously of people in good physical condition.
On the labor market front, one of the greatest difficulties today concerns the precarious work and income of young people, which requires first of all interventions on the scholastic and extra-scholastic training processes, and measures to make the various accompanying measures work. integration and activation already foreseen by the system.
On the other hand, the employment difficulties of older people run the risk of nullifying the effect of increasing retirement age on the extension of working life. Training programs specifically targeted at this age group, the expansion of part-time and (why not?) Options, occasional but regular, pension loans and, even, figurative contributions represent a battery of instruments that can be perfectly integrated into the contributory pension system.

Work less to work all?
Beyond the changes in the pension formulas – from the retributive to the contributory ones – the demographic dynamics of the last decades have forced numerous OECD countries to raise the retirement age, with the aim of making the respective pension systems sustainable over time. Similar adaptation interventions have often been accompanied, in Italy as abroad, by strong concerns about their possible impact on the employment side, in particular with an eye to young people. In order for a prolonged stay in the workplace of the elderly to have a negative impact on the employment opportunities of the young people, on the one hand, the jobs offered by a market may be considered as fixed over time – a sort of zero-sum budget. – and that, on the other, young and old can be easily replaced in their workplace.
The logic that led Italy – and many other European countries – to lower the effective retirement age until almost the middle of the 1990s, despite the repeated alarms on the sustainability of social security systems, is known in economics as the error of the fixed number of jobs: if the elderly remain in business – it is claimed – there are fewer places for young people. Consequently, it is considered opportune, socially as well as individually, to promote early retirement in order to make way for young people.
However, this is a logic that has no basis in economic theory and which finds little feedback in the data. In fact, the setting of the fixed number of jobs to be divided among workers must be reversed to ask what the characteristics of an inclusive and dynamic labor market are and what policies can incentivize it. From an empirical point of view, data observation shows that countries in which the activity rates of older people are higher are also those with the highest employment rates of young people and women. Although there are no hard rules in economics, Gruber, Milligan and Wise write that “there is no evidence that getting older workers out of the labor market will make jobs available to young people. If anything, the opposite is true; paying because a senior worker exits the labor force reduces the employment rate and increases the unemployment rate of young people and workers with a few years of seniority ». Even more convincing is the evidence provided by the positive relationship between the creation of new jobs for young people and the elderly respectively [Figures 2 and 3]. If there were a mechanism of substitution for the increase of ones it would correspond to a reduction of the others. If they grow together, it means that other factors (for example a lower cost or greater flexibility – not precariousness – of work) are able to determine the growth of both.

Of course, what is worthwhile in the trend may not be confirmed in the short term or in recessionary circumstances, when an increase in the exit age could have a negative effect on the employment of the weaker segment of the labor market, now represented almost everywhere – but in Italy in a particularly accentuated way – by young people. This is the empirical evidence presented in a recent study by T. Boeri, P. Garibaldi and E. Moen. The research, looking at the INPS figures on the corporate tax returns of companies with more than 15 private sector employees – remained active throughout the 2008-2014 period – suggests that the 2011 reform has led to a substitution effect between the employment of older people and that of the youngest, which has experienced a quantifiable reduction in about 37,000 units.
However, a study by the Bank of Italy on data from the ISTAT Labor Force Survey for the period 2004-2016, led by F. Carta, F. D’Amuri and T.M. Wachter (work in progress, cited in the Governor’s Final Considerations 2017), soon to be published, instead shows clear complementary effects also in the short term: at the turn of the 2011 reform, in the period 2004-2016, the relationship between the rate variation youth employment and the change in the employment rate of older people has remained positive; checking for the cyclical conditions, the increase in the number of older workers (55-69 years) is therefore accompanied by an increase, albeit of a lesser extent, by younger workers (15-34 years).

To conclude:
The challenges that await our economies in the coming decades are expected to be large and complex: from the aging of the population to the dynamics of low economic growth, passing through a technological innovation that will deeply revolutionize the labor market. With the reforms of the financial sustainability of the pension system, it is now necessary to address the political agenda to actions that act on the employment front, to prepare workers and businesses to seize the opportunities arising from the use of new technologies, and to protect those who instead they are damaged today, in work and salaries, and tomorrow, in retirement. While apprenticeships, continuous training and effective active policies are tools that can alleviate the employment problem, the payment, by the general tax system, of contributions for periods of absence from work due to unemployment or nursing work appears to be able to tackle the pension problem of young people better than promises made by politicians without any connection to the creation of new wealth.

Bibliography:
The work, in its first part, contains a summary of more fully developed topics in:
Elsa Fornero, Who is afraid of reforms, Illusions, clichés and truth about pensions, Università Bocconi Editore, 2018.
The empirical part instead refers to:
J. Gruber and D. Wise, (eds.) Social security programs and retirement around the word. The relationship to youth employment, The University of Chicago Press, 2010
T. Boeri, P. Garibaldi and E. Moen, A clash of generations? Increase in Retirement Age and Labor Demand for Youth, http://www.reforming.it/doc/931/workinps-papers.pdf