Giulio Trevisan, General Manager, Comec Innovative

Flexibility and adaptability are the keywords that have been Comec’s leitmotif.

The Company, situated in East-Central Italy, not far from the sea, was founded in 1965 by Giuseppe Trevisan, father of the present General Manager Giulio Trevisan, to manufacture parallel lathes to be supplied to the industry and the educational sector. Over 50 years of continuous presence in high technology applications demonstrates the high quality of this company that has grown considerably while remaining a family owned company. Caracteristics of Comec Innovative are the flexibility, adaptability and attention to market developments and customer requests, qualities that have allowed the small original company to grow continuously.

The development of today’s activities began in 2007 thanks to the historical collaboration relationships with the aeronautical industry. From 2012 Comec Innovative started focusing on the production of high quality machinery for GFRP and CFRP industry, designing and manufacturing a new generation of advanced machinery tailored for customers in Italy and around the world. Responding to the need of more working surfaces to satisfy the ever-growing customer demands while keeping  maintaining the superior quality features, the company just inaugurated the new Headquarters & Factory.

Recently, the fourth generation, represented by Giuseppe Trevisan Junior recently graduated in engineering, joined the company.

Over the years Comec Innovative has grown considerably while remaining a family owned company.

JEC Composites Magazine: Good morning Dr. Trevisan, your business is a family company, interesting both for its constant growth and for its high quality. From the beginning (in 1965) it seems that your vocation is for innovation and a deep technical knowledge, how do you see the future?
Giulio Trevisan, General Manager, Comec Innovative: “After earning a degree in economics and commerce, I started working in Comec Innovative in 1990 and, for over 30 years, I have been involved in technology. From the very beginning, Comec Innovative has always been involved in machinery with high automation content, building machines equipped with numerical control in the early 70’s and automatic assembly lines in the late 80’ of last century. The machinery sector for composite materials was a natural transition which took place in 2008 thanks to a project for Finmeccanica which was already a customer of Comec Innovative in the machine tool sector. I think that the future of technologies both in the plastic and in the composite materials industries will increasingly see integration between mechanical and electronic technologies with the knowledge of physics and chemistry, since unlike other technological fields, deep understanding and knowledge of materials becomes a winning factor in the construction of machinery.”

JEC Composites Magazine: Starting from machine tools, how has your company evolved over the years? Who are your strategic partners?
Giulio Trevisan: “Our evolution was initially driven by the needs and specific requests of our customers, who, generally, are large multinational companies that need to build pilot plants for their research and development departments. Over time, production plants based on industrial development activities have been built. These experiences led us to deepen our knowledge in all technical aspects in all engineering sectors. Today this knowledge allow us to have both resin producers and fiber producers as partners in order to give the best service to users of pre-impregnated materials. Our customers are partners as well because we are involved in projects of global value.”

JEC Composites Magazine: In which sector(s) do you think we will see the greatest development for the composite materials industry?
Giulio Trevisan: “Surely the world of energy will represent the sector with the greatest development in the coming years, as, with the advent of increasingly high-performance resins, its uses will extend to sectors and industries that have not yet been explored. What will certainly generate new development in this sector are the performances allowed by chemistry for pre-impregnated materials. In the next 10 years, I expect that many technological products will be rethought by the contribution of composite materials. A lot depends from the developments of new resins particularly designed to obtain the best performance for towpreg. Specifically, I refer to the development of pressure vessels in composite materials for hydrogen storage, which allow greater storage capacity with a decrease in weight and a greater safety.”

JEC Composites Magazine: How do you see your Company’s role in the future of the composites industry?
Giulio Trevisan: “Today, Comec Innovative has gained that kind of experience that make us ready for new challenges. However, we are always attentive to market developments and ready to rethink our plants in terms of quality and productivity, always keeping an eye to the environment issue as well.

We can say that, as the composite industry originates mainly in the world of woven materials therefore, they are the children of this experience. Instead, COMEC began his history in the machine tool sector, with many different experiences in the world of machinery and carries this wealth of knowledge with it.”

JEC Composites Magazine: Let’s talk about the circular economy. The issue of the environmental impact and recyclability of composite materials is an increasingly important aspect for the composite industry, how are you dealing with this issue?
Giulio Trevisan: “Transforming the contemporary economy, improving the recyclability of materials, is an indispensable path, not only to respect the environment, but also to reduce the costs of our companies. Our commitment is to create ever “greener” tools in terms of energy consumed, dispersion of materials in the environment and waste management. We have often been involved in the recyclability of composite materials and we currently have a research project underway with the University d’Annunzio of Chieti. The research is focused on the study of innovative carbon fiber recycling techniques based on the decomposition of the matrix using microbiological agents.”

JEC Composites Magazine: What will be your next challenges both in the short and long term?
Giulio Trevisan: “Comec Innovative has the ambition to become a reference point for those who want to impregnate materials with increasingly performing resins. In the short term we are already involved in several projects for the realization of new materials and unconventional applications. In the long term, the goal is to create increasingly high-performance machines and tools that are both performing and respectful of the environment”

JEC Composites Magazine: Can you tell us about your project: “New highly automated solutions for impregnation and Smart Tow Winding”?
Giulio Trevisan: “The “Smart Tow Winding” project is funded by MIUR in the Smart Factory area. Its general objective is the development of a new filament winding technology for the production of high performance composites characterized by a high degree of automation.

This technology, which Comec will develop, will lead to a great competitive advantage, since through the use of towpreg it will be possible to guarantee higher working speeds, products characterized by a strong reduction of defects and overcoming the current limits of traditional filament winding machines. Furthermore, a very important aspect of the project is constituted by its team, made up of both industrial and academic partners, therefore able to guarantee a solid point of view that includes the purely technical sense for development combined with a strong scientific background.”