Inside the Valle Salimbene workshop: why we build every group of the line in-house

Where a line is born

Our absorbent hygiene lines are born in Valle Salimbene, in the province of Pavia. Design, machining, assembly and testing all happen under the same roof. In the first episode of this series we said that Made in Italy needs explaining. This time we step into the workshop to take a closer look at how a line takes shape.

The main groups

Some technologies are the best known: hammer mills for cellulose defibration, SAP dosing units, rotary filters for air and dust handling, hot melt applicators and stackers at the end of the line. They directly affect core quality, the consumption of the most expensive raw materials and running continuity. We design and build them ourselves.

The “small” groups that make the difference

A line, however, is not made of main groups alone. The precision of the finished product depends on dozens of less visible groups.

Rotation wheels on Baby Pants and Adult Pants lines: they turn the product and bring it back to the correct pitch at full speed. The slightest play is enough to produce off-register products.

Cutting units, from shaped cutting to final cutting: cut quality depends on how knives, anvils and supports are machined.

Elastic application units: tension must remain constant, piece after piece.

Folders and transport groups: they carry the product all the way to the stacker.

We machine these groups in our own workshop too, with the same tolerances and the same care as the main groups.

Designing and machining a few metres apart

Motors, drives, bearings and electronic components are sourced from specialised suppliers. Everything that is line mechanics, on the other hand, we design and machine ourselves. The engineering office and the workshop are a few metres apart, so the loop between drawing, part and check is short. If a detail is not convincing, we fix it right away, in the workshop. The experience gained on more than 100 lines installed in around 30 countries stays in the hands of the people who design and build every day.

Testing as verification, not as a record

Every line is assembled and tested by us before shipment. Testing is not about setting a speed record. It is about confirming the speeds we declare for continuous production: 600/800 ppm for Baby Diaper and Baby Pants, 200/300 ppm for Adult Diaper and Adult Pants, 300 ppm for Underpad, 1200 ppm for Light Inco, up to 1500 ppm for Lady Care. We know every group, so we know how it behaves at those speeds.

What it means for producers

For the customer this translates into three things.

A contact who knows every mechanical group on their line.

Spare parts built by the people who designed them: whether it is a rotation wheel or a knife, even for plants far from Europe.

Simpler revamping: upgrading a dosing unit or adapting a cutting unit to a new format is easier when you start from the original design.

We are a family company, and the workshop is the heart of what we do. That is where a line becomes reliable, long before it reaches the customer's plant.