Driving customer manufacturing performance

Benvenuti S.r.l. was founded by the Benvenuti family in 1987 and produces high-precision mechanical components, mainly for the hydraulics, energy and industrial engineering sectors with around 70 employees. The company works closely with its customers to deliver tailored projects, from components to pre-assembled parts.

With its workforce of 70 employees, Benvenuti primarily produces hydraulic piston pumps, hydraulic gear motors, hydraulic blocks and heat exchangers in cast iron, steel, or aluminium. Lot sizes range from single prototypes through to series of 500 parts or more. In total, the company manufactures around 3,000 different components, across product families that differ in individual features. 57 horizontal machining centres operate around the clock in three shifts, seven days a week. Half of the machines are equipped with robotic cells, while the others are connected in groups to an FMS system for automatic loading and unloading. This means that each operator can oversee between three and five machines. “For us, being able to combine automated standalone machines and the FMS system are the key to maximum flexibility and makes us extremely competitive”, explains Production Coordinator Riccardo Benvenuti.
 

In 2023, Benvenuti was acquired by Casappa S.p.A., a global leading manufacturer of piston pumps, gear motors, filters, and hydraulic systems. Casappa is also an Italian family-owned company with 850 employees. Being internationally established, Casappa has production sites in China and India as well as a global sales network. “At the company headquarters in Parma, we have recently opened a modern logistics centre covering 10,000 square metres, from which we feed the production of the plant in the Parma headquarters and ship to our distribution centers worldwide and also directly to our European customers”, reports Roberto Bergamaschi, Group Operations & Supply Chain Director of the Casappa Group, as well as CEO and Board Member at Benvenuti.

The hydraulic components are mainly used in building and construction, material handling, agriculture and turf care and on-highway vehicles. The company produces more than 1 million parts each year. Alongside Casappa’s focus on fluid power, the companies Ikron, from the filtration sector, and Tecnord, which specialises in hydraulic controls, form part of a common holding company. They complement each other in the development and manufacturing of products for electro-hydraulics – a growing trend that will play an increasingly important role in the future.
 

When it comes to new products or optimising ongoing production, Benvenuti and MAPAL work closely together. Step by step, the partners review each stage of the process, decide on the right technologies, and agree on the best way to carry out the project. This approach led to the development of an initial turnkey solution for the efficient and automated manufacturing of aluminium pump covers a number of years ago. Particular attention was also paid to the clamping fixture: A clamping fixture which rotates 90 degrees enables two components to be machined from six sides in a single setup.

With its turnkey solutions, MAPAL now offers a comprehensive range of services covering the end-to-end planning and implementation of manufacturing processes. From project analysis and tool and fixture design through to commissioning and production support, every element is perfectly coordinated and tailored to the customer’s requirements – all from a single source. The result is stable processes, high cutting data and low cost per part. For Benvenuti, MAPAL took on responsibility for the complete tooling package, including process design, while the machining programme was developed in-house. “It was a very complex project, with all elements needing to be precisely coordinated”, says Riccardo Benvenuti, highlighting the benefits now achieved in production. It took eight months from initial quotation to the start of production, which was much quicker than expected.
 

Another turnkey project developed jointly involved prototype setting fixtures and dedicated tooling for machining oil pump covers for a new version of Casappa’s piston pump. The machine was ready for operation in just two and a half months. “We see our collaboration with MAPAL in a very positive light and are keen to complete more projects together”, confirms Riccardo Benvenuti. MAPAL’s ability to deliver complete turnkey projects – providing tools, clamping fixtures and all other process components all from a single source – has been met with strong demand. Benvenuti was among the first customers in Italy to adopt MAPAL’s workpiece clamping solutions.

With the purchase of Benvenuti, in addition to an important competitive advantage, Casappa has improved business continuity by significantly reducing the risks of dependence on machining suppliers, bringing back into balance the make-buy ratio that had been unbalanced in favor of machining in house in recent years of strong growth. The Board of Directors of Benvenuti confirmed the strategy of dedicating 60-70% of the installed production capacity to the other companies of the group (Casappa, Ikron and Tecnord) and the remaining 30-40% to other important Italian companies with which it can develop a long-term relationship. As Roberto Bergamaschi announces, Benvenuti has drawn up a business plan that forecasts a growth in turnover of over 30% in the next two years compared to 2026 and which aims for 12 million euros in 2028. In addition to the introduction of the subsidiary Tecnord, the plan provides for the introduction of new customers in various sectors in addition to that of hydraulics for which the company has an exceptional specialization. The next step in development after 2028 involves the evolution from a national supplier to an international player capable of making competitive business proposals to important European companies, proposing itself as prime contractor, also taking advantage of the Casappa group's network of suppliers of raw materials and surface treatments. 
 

Bergamaschi now aims to leverage the positive experience gained with MAPAL’s complete tooling solutions across other Casappa and Tecnord production sites. With this strategic decision, Benvenuti has entered into a close, long-term partnership with the tooling specialist – unlocking clear added value. “Casappa is not yet fully taking advantage of this added value, we’re still building that up while with Tecnord we still have to define the objectives and a consequent programme for the introduction of MAPAL technology”, says Bergamaschi. However, MAPAL tools and presetting systems are already in use at Casappa’s plant in Shanghai. To ensure process reliability for components with particularly high functional and manufacturing requirements, machining processes evaluated and applied by Benvenuti were transferred to China, including all the necessary tools.

MAPAL's global presence and international production could offer advantages to Casappa in its existing plants in China and India and also with regard to European and Asian machining suppliers which are supported by a team of dedicated technologists. They aim to introduce the best standards of processing and process control to guarantee both competitiveness and high quality standards. MAPAL has already established itself there and can support international sites with projects right through to sophisticated turnkey solutions – where close collaboration between all partners involved is key.