Author of the blog: Mauricio Facchinetti

I have been involved in the GRP industry for more than 15 years, working in the machine manufacturing and product design installation.

Since I was born, I have been involved in the big infrastructure projects, while accompanying my father who was a civil engineer. Already as a child, I learned to enjoy a successfully completed project that worked as it was supposed to. It led me to becoming a civil engineer myself. 

During my successful completions of multiple bridges, underground tunnels for trains, and highway projects in countries like Italy, Brazil and Argentina, I encountered and achieved critical deadlines that had to be met, no matter the circumstances, despite any weather conditions, and unforeseen situations.While working on one of these projects, I came across the GRP pipes for the first time and saw great potential in them.

I strongly believe the water is the most precious treasure we have.

We need to care for it, use the best way to transport it and at the same time, save as much energy as possible. All of this can be achieved with the GRP lines and pipes. They do not corrode, they are light, extremely high in strength and perform excellently when transporting fluids, meaning they are energy efficient.

At the beginning of my GRP career, I was in charge of the design and installation of Continuous Filament Winding (CFW) lines, working for a specialised company called VEM SPA. During that time, I successfully installed more than 35 plants around the world.

But before I tell you about the second part of my GRP career, let’s first talk about the 2009 GRP crisis. Up until 2008, all the GRP companies were doing amazingly well and had their filament winding machines working on full capacity. Then, the crisis of 2009 hit. Various problems started to pop up, the number of commissions for the new infrastructure projects decreased, and the GRP market lost a lot of opportunities.

The equation "produce faster to reduce the costs" was not working anymore. As a result, a lot of GRP companies struggled and even closed down. Using my experience in the infrastructure projects, especially the knowledge from the GRP manufacturing lines, I decided to fight the problem and find a solution for it.

Together with my partner Fabio Fracasso I created the Effective Filament Winding® (EFW) technology, the first ever industrial approach which allows for profit optimization in the filament winding industry.

In order to reach and realise this technology, I founded TOPFIBRA and created a new concept of the filament winding lines to efficiently implement the EFW® technology, ensuring a profit-making turnkey plant.

At first, it was difficult to get this project started. The main reasons for that were the filament winding market beliefs, since many experts of the sector continuously say that the good times are going to return. And that there is no needed to change the industrial approach of the GRP manufacturing.

Fortunately, today, after we have been implementing the EFW® technology combined with the upgrades in different existing plants and installed new turnkey plants, our hard work and our determination to help the GRP market have been fully repaid by our customers’ satisfaction.

Are you ready to optimise your profit in the
Filament Winding industry?

Click the button below if you need to talk to me about your next GRP project.

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