In the significant slogan of the title, coined to celebrate such an important target of its activity, Dioma summarizes its full essence
Dioma was born on April 5th 1967 from the entrepreneurial spirit of Leonardo Martini, with the company name of Mafra Snc and the business mission of designing and manufacturing moulds for technical items. Ten years later, they set up a small testing division, which soon becomes a real production department of plastic moulded objects. In 1992, these two realities merge under the business name Dioma. Afterwards, in November 2014, the founder’s premature death, the great media coverage that accompanied the succession in the enterprise and the new course, with Cristina de Rosso who heads Dioma.
A course rich in meanings and satisfactions
The deep meaning of Dioma’s 50th anniversary resides in the will of reinventing themselves every day to suit the market’s changeable demands, accepting ever-evolving daily challenges. «This means having collected the legacy of our founder and guiding the company towards the future – explains Cristina de Rosso -. I believe that our slogan, coined just to celebrate this anniversary, summarizes our thought precisely: for 50 years, we have designed, built and moulded the future together. Moulds are the centre of our world».
In such a long industrial course, over the years Dioma has cultivated both its competence in implementing moulds for products characterized by ever-rising aesthetical and dimensional criticality and its capability of granting the expected results since the first mould tests. The adoption of technologies (gas, 2k, MF, etc.) is then at stake, as well as the development of a competence expressed by the product, aimed at customers’ full satisfaction with the final result of the mould and/or the supply. «In this long course – adds Mrs De Rosso – we believe that addressing the automotive ambit has been certainly a winning strategic choice, resulting in great professional satisfactions for us. For this sector, we have also designed and manufactured gas injection technology moulds for which we have been committed to international projects and for some years we were the only producer of some components of a car instrument panel, supplying also directly the Asian market». Anyway, in 50 years several implementations have been highly satisfactory for Dioma. Among them, certainly some projects developed for automotive products intended for Audi car maker (front frames and aesthetical components for car clusters and inner optical components for the panel lighting), which in recent years have represented some of the most exacting challenges, followed anyway by highly satisfactory results, in terms of product quality as well as of outcomes achieved in manufacturing processes, such as durability, efficiency and stability. «In this context, it is certainly worth highlighting the implementation of a specific frame of the project Audi B8, with gas injection technology and particular solutions of internal motions to solve geometrical undercuts, initially declared unsolvable by several of our competitors, too». This implementation marked a significant turning point for Dioma and the attained result was a source of great satisfaction and pride for the entire company.
Customers’ confidence stems and grows in this context, highly motivated to attain results fully meeting the submitted demands. «In our opinion – adds Cristina de Rosso – the customer’s trust precisely springs from the progressive accumulation in time of events providing satisfaction in economic terms, with the product reliability and prompt solutions to unexpected problems. This process is built up project after project, slowly but constantly: this is Dioma’s approach».
The initiatives at which Dioma is now working to cross the important line of its 50th anniversary aim at improving its visibility on the market as company of proven experience, gained in several years of activity in search of new business opportunities. According to this vision, Dioma is also developing its website and is programming to exhibit again in sector trade fairs, besides enhancing its proactive sale activities for new Italian and foreign customers.
In the name of an all-round vision
The strong points characterizing Dioma on the market are various and essential. First ranks experience, based on historical files of designs fulfilled for various products and sectors, since over the years it has increased the company’s capability of anticipating problems and criticalities arousing in similar projects of new products. As relevant is the competence of human resources, accustomed to operating with precision and accuracy in the execution of the various activities for the mould or product manufacturing, then aware of having to comply with customers’ expectations fully. Highlights on flexibility as well, especially in the moulding sector, where Dioma’s productive unit is managed on three shifts, with the possibility of satisfying specific requirements 7/7 h24. Moreover, the pursuit of the competitive edge is constant for this dynamic reality, in moulding and in the mould manufacturing. Therefore, the best results are attained optimizing production plants, reducing idle times and exploiting all available technological opportunities to reduce machining times and, consequently, costs.
«Our mission – states Cristina de Rosso – consists in restarting from where Leonardo Martini stopped, making Dioma work to widen its offer and then to grant development and growth to all involved workers. We fully agree about what declared by J. Naisbitt while reciting “in the new enterprise the human capital has replaced the financial capital as strategic resource. People and profits are indissolubly linked”. Our vision is being able to demonstrate the “team” power to all». In this context, Dioma’s orientation is towards niche products needing high technical skills, co-design and experience to achieve mass-productions enduring time. The goal is designing and making high-quality moulds resulting in objects with refined aesthetics, with customers expecting high competence and experience, oriented to solve critical matters. Moreover, Dioma intends to regain market ambits given up in the past, without anyway placing the automotive industry in the background, but simply reaping the fruits of experiences gained in other contexts, too.
«Suitable quality, costs and services for today’s and tomorrow’s higher and higher expectations: the market calls for these targets. Certainly, they are obvious things but anyway not less important». With its resources, Dioma aims precisely at that, trying to be competitive in its offers, fast in the research of solutions and reliable in the service and product quality. «Quality holds outstanding relevance – further explains Mrs de Rosso – because the company’s value, consisting in being interesting and reliable towards the market and customers, is expressed by its level. Quality in the broadest sense, then, not only meant as product quality but also as quality of methods and procedures leading to customers’ full satisfaction. Our organization relies on the PDCA (plan–do–check–act) logic as daily guideline, which is a constant process of quality improvement. In the meantime, innovation is the capability of matching the competence gained in the past with the skills in winning new challenges in new projects. We are not dealing then, only with the technological innovation of production facilities but with innovation in the approach to problems, examining new technical solutions in the mould and, last but least, exploiting the contribution by the external specialists in the components purchased for moulds, in other words suppliers».
Moulds and high-quality products in the forefront
Today, the application sectors of Dioma supplies are mainly four: automotive, air conditioning, ventilation and implementation of panel covers of various kinds, for industrial electronic equipment and also for consumer products. In its reference market, Dioma is acknowledged as a company that “makes high-quality moulds”: the mould, then, is its feather in the cap, a mould that is often intended for volume-manufacturing and therefore expected to prove its reliability in time with constant results. Dioma makes in fact moulds cared in all details, with selections of steels, machining and solutions able to offer such reliability and durability performances. Besides, the products manufactured by Dioma have a value in common: they are often aesthetical, intended for surface finishing processes needing a high quality of the raw material. These products are supplied in compliance with customers’ requirements, with a customized supply logistics in conformity with specific needs. «It is worth mentioning a critical product that stands out among the latest realizations – explains Cristina de Rosso –: a transparent that is also bi-material light guide with high optical value, mounted in the cluster of Fiat X car and manufactured by means of 2k moulds devised and made by us, which produce huge volumes constantly. A product implying a hardly managed process but anyway innovative compared to what previously done».
Moreover, in conformity with all-round attention to customers’ needs, Dioma puts various services at their disposal. In the ambit of the mould and of the product in general, they offer customers a co-design support aimed at solving criticalities and at proposing ameliorative solutions, which can also reduce investment costs and at the same time safeguard quality and reliability. Naturally, the company proposes the whole array of activities concerning the mould testing and the dimensional product certification, as well as an after-sale service support that intervenes to make modifications, too. This is completed by repair or modification services on moulds manufactured by third parties.
The presence in the various executive areas of machines and equipment, allowing the company to produce and to supply its high-quality products and moulds to the market, is of fundamental importance in Dioma’s operating dynamics. In the three areas of design, mould manufacturing and production, are installed a station for the Moldflow Moldex3D analysis, Cad-Cam 3D Cimatron and WorkNC design systems, a DEA Iota dimensional control machine, 3-axis milling machines Makino, Deckel Maho and Isper, Charmilles plunge and wire EDM plants, Negri Bossi and Arburg robotized presses featuring 110 and 700 t (1k and 2k), a nitrogen generation plant and gas injection moulding units. «We face anyway a constant challenge – ends Mrs de Rosso – as entrepreneurs, in keeping pace with technological evolutions, in choosing what we should follow and in dosing the investments they require. We examine attentively the opportunities offered by the market, we evaluate their benefits for the organization and, in case of adoption of the new technology, we weight its economic sustainability».
A dynamic and proactive reality
For 50 years, Dioma has prevailingly operated in the segment of automotive applications: from the implementation of single and specific instrument elements up to the production of the most complex components for on-board clusters, with acknowledged aesthetical , qualitative and dimensional value. «50 years of experience – affirms Cristina de Rosso – allow us to transfer the severe culture of automotive origin to several other applications, addressing the worlds of air conditioning, household appliances, electronic, electric and lighting products …». Dioma offers its competence in all phases to its customers: co-design, moldflow analysis, engineering, mould making, testing, metrological and product certification reports, pre-series and mass-productions, including small assemblies. Finally, they also egregiously express the capability of managing, as prime contractor in outsourcing, also successive machining, like pad printings and paintings, to supply customers with the product fully finished.
Dioma is a reality employing 35 people, working in design, toolshop and moulding in the production ambit. Besides the administration area, the company relies on a sale and quality control staff. «Precisely in the quality ambit – specifies Mrs de Rosso – on the occasion of our 50th anniversary, we have released a project aimed at the implementation, by the current year, of a quality system compliant with the latest ISO9001:2015 and IATF16949:201 regulations, also to seize new sale opportunities abroad». The new quality system will also integrate some procedures of the safety management system under upgrading, starting an integration process among systems that, by nature, share various common targets.
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5 – Angular grid for conditioner.
6 – Audi B9 frontmask mould.
7 – Plates and fruits for domotics.
8 – Moldflow design and analysis.
9 – Lightguide.