Confindustria and the Tuscany Region visit Italcertifer Laboratories in Osmannoro

Monday 23 January 2023

The President of the Tuscany Region, Eugenio Giani with a delegation of Confindustria Toscana, Confindustria Firenze, represented by President Maurizio Bigazzi and with Confindustria Toscana Nord with President Daniele Matteini, as well as the President of Ditecfer - Distretto per le Tecnologie Ferroviarie, l'Alta Velocità e la Sicurezza delle Reti - together with some top members and staff also of the Corporate Affairs Structure- National Institutional Affairs of the Italian FS Group, visited the Osmannoro Laboratories.

Among the reasons for the visit, the confirmation of a concrete collaboration with the Tuscany Region - a stakeholder of the Italcertifer Company - and the synergy with the Business Associations.

This day has represented also a valuable opportunity for discussion to contextualize, make the most of a real correspondence of responsibility and objectives for the development of transport safety, highlighting the strategic importance of the Osmannoro IDP in the Tuscan railway district for the national and international market.

Therefore, once again, it has been an opportunity for Italcertifer to show its activities in the field of testing and certification of Railway Safety and to illustrate its company health status, characterized not only from an economic course in increase with optimal forecasts also for year 2023 but also from a remarkable increment of store clerks and customers, also "no captive" (not related to the Companies of the FS Group) in the fields of Infrastructure, Rolling Stock and Railway Signalling Systems, both in Italy and abroad.

Eng. Carmine Zappacosta, the CEO of Italcertifer, took this opportunity to discuss with all the shareholders present some project areas in the consolidation and implementation phase, as the activities related to the AEC – Architecture, Engineering and Construction -  design verification  and the future prospect of having an active role also in the design verification of bridges, viaducts and galleries. It is a delicate and challenging activity in this historical moment, motivated by a growing demand in Italy by managers of road, motorway and railway infrastructure following the Italian Law Legislative Decree "Genova" (D. L. 109/2018).

Concrete intentions, those shared, that meet in full also the strategy of the Italian State Railways FS Group delineated in the Model of Governance of the Industrial Plan 2022 - 2031, to intensify and enhance the skills and potential of the various Group Companies and their synergies.

Another area of great common interest to all visitors is the occupational responsibility which, in the case of Italcertifer, has been characterized by regular growth from 2016 to the present, thanks to a strategic choice of management in pursuing the desire to internalize skills, in the face of a previous trend of recourse to consultants and external staff. A policy that has accompanied the evolution of its internal competences also considering the university master’s degree courses conducted in partnership with the four universities that make up the corporate structure. This has allowed Italcertifer to become one of the major reference points for everything related to the verification of compliance and safety in the railway sector and to become a business model, also in terms of employment, with an effective increase in the workforce, from 70 employees in 2016 to 209 at the end of 2022, with an important presence of women and people under 40.

The growth of human resources, skills and a clear management policy aimed at expanding business make Italcertifer a healthy and vital business reality, a leading reality in the field of Certification and Testing, also for the dynamic network consolidated in recent years with the Institutions, the Universities and with the productive context  of Tuscany.