Fumagalli's lighting booth, an Italian lighting company that participated in the ‘2018 Guangzhou inte'srnational Lighting Exhibition.’ (Photo=Jung-Bae Kim) © World Lighting News.

 

Written by : Jung-Bae Kim. Publisher & Editor. Lighting Critic.

Italy is'the home of excellent design lighting fixtures'. This is especially true for residential, commercial and decorative lighting fixtures. However, among these Italian lighting

companies, not a few have closed their business due to the offensive of low-cost products in China.
 
Meanwhile, Italian FumaGalli lighting caught two rabbits at the same time, “the same

price as Chinese products” and “the quality of Italian lighting fixtures,” and rather ignited

the quality competition with low-cost Chinese products. What is the secret of Fumagalli

lighting that caught the tail of “low-priced Chinese products”? <Editor's note>
 

A 40-year-old lighting company run by the “Pumagali family”
The secret of “factory automation” overcoming “low-cost Chinese products”
Realizing the price of Chinese products in the quality of Italian products 

 

 

Many of the people who went on to university in the 1970s have some negative thoughts about "family companies." This is because many universities at the time taught “family

businesses” as “bad companies,” where the families dominated the company and employees at will. Instead, they taught that a corporation that made the company public on the

stock market was a "good company."

 

However, this kind of perception of “family companies” and “stock companies” is actually a prejudice with no reliable basis. This is because there are many “family businesses” like

Glenberry of Sweden that are praised and respected by consumers in the world. On the other hand, there are a number of “stock companies” that are blamed for “gap quality”.

 

Although it still doesn't have a global reputation like Sweden's Glenberry, the Italian

Fumagalli family and their family business, Fumagalli Srl, are among the most anticipated

lighting companies in the Italian lighting industry.

 

The reason Fumagalli Lighting emerged as “the hope of the Italian lighting industry” is

because it finally found a way to break the offensive of “Chinese low-cost products,” the

biggest concern in the Italian lighting industry. In fact, the method that Fumagalli Lighting found was very simple, by lowering the price of their company's products to the level of "Chinese products."

 

◆ Increased competitiveness by combining “Italian quality” and “Chinese prices”

 

Of course, from the time when Chinese lighting companies appeared in the global lighting market and devastated the world lighting market with'low-priced products', as a

countermeasure, “If we lower prices as much as Chinese-made products, we can prevent

Chinese lighting companies from attacking low prices.

 

Nevertheless, the reason why this “concept” stayed at the level of an idea simply was

because the “way” to put the idea into practice was not appropriate.

 

Of course, relocating the factory to China can solve the problem of “Chinese price”.

However, the products produced in that way are mere 'made-in products'. Even if you die

and break a hundred times, you cannot become a “Made in Germany” or “Made in Italy”

product. So, it is natural that the price of a product made in China is at the level of a

product made in China.

 

Therefore, for example, it is concluded that in order for an Italian lighting company to

make a “product at a Chinese price,” it must produce the product locally, not in China. “By the way, how do we make lighting products at “Chinese prices” in Germany, Italy and

Korea, where wages are many times higher than China?” It was difficult to solve this

problem.

 

Meanwhile, Italian lighting companies were forced to close their business one by one due to Chinese products. Many of the surviving companies were taken over by Chinese

lighting companies, and there are many cases of Italian companies only in appearance.
 
◆ Fumagalli's Secret, “Factory Automation”

Despite such a serious situation, Fumagalli Lighting is embarrassing Chinese lighting

companies by selling “high-quality Italian-made lighting fixtures” in the global lighting

market at “Chinese lighting product prices” or lower prices.

 

In fact, overseas baers who visited the booth of Fumagalli lighting that participated in the '2018 Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition' held in June of this year and officials

from local lighting companies in China saw the price that Puma Gali lighting put on each product and said, “This is really Is it true?” he was embarrassed. This is because the price attached to the underside of the FumaGalli Lighting product was really just the level of the price made in China.

 

In this regard, the officials (family) of FumaGalli Lighting said, "How is such a price

possible?" However, when the reporter repeated the question several times with a serious face, he replied with just one word, "Factory automation."

 

Starting with the answer of “factory automation,” a lot of questions and answers were f

ollowed between reporters and Puma Gali lighting officials, and eventually the secret of

Fumagalli's “the same price as Chinese products” emerged.

 

◆ Computing production facilities and automation lines while building new factories

Fumagalli Lighting was launched in 1973 by its founder Fumagalli Giancarlo as a private

company named "La Bottega dei Maestri Forgiatori" in Varese, northern Italy.

 

At the time of its inception, FumaGalli Lighting was a professional company that produced monotonous indoor lighting fixtures by artistic handwork, and was a family company. After five years of business, the company hired some employees and began to enter foreign

markets, especially the Japanese market.

 

By 1984, pursuing the intuition of the founder Fumagalli, Fumagalli Lighting switched the

company towards creating innovative outdoor lighting systems. And it started producing

galvanized steel tubes (street lamps) covered with resin materials.

 

In 1999, the Fumagalli family converted a private company into a limited company and

continues to manufacture "composite materials" outdoor lighting fixtures. And by

introducing computerized production facilities, the production has more than doubled.

 

In addition, Fumagalli Lighting has become a world leader in the field of outdoor lighting manufacturing made of resin by achieving “factory automation” by recently establishing a new factory in the position of a new company.

 

Through this process, FumaGalli Lighting produces its products using an automated

facility. Although not a small amount of money was invested in factory automation, the

production volume increased significantly due to productivity improvement instead.

 

In addition, the minimization of the production manpower was able to overcome the obstacles of high wages and high costs that had been a problem.

 

In a situation where other Italian lighting companies are shutting down due to “low-priced Chinese products,” they have turned into “scary companies” that threaten Chinese lighting companies with “Chinese price” and “Italian product quality”.

 

◆ The trend of “country of origin” also helps Fumagalli lighting

Moreover, the trend of the global lighting market and the changing behavior of

consumers are also on the side of Puma Gali Lighting. In the global lighting market these days, even for the same lighting products, the trend of asking "Where is the origin?" is

spreading.

 

This trend emerged from consumers' perception of "No matter how luxury it is, can a

product made in China be called a luxury product just like a product made in France, Italy, Switzerland?", and the question of "Where is the production place?" It can be said that

this is a result of reflecting the behavior of consumers.

 

In other words, it means that the time has come for consumers to say, "If it is a luxury

product made in China, it is not a luxury product."

 

In this era, even if it is a luxury product, it cannot be treated as a luxury product unless it

is proved that it was made in “home” rather than in China. Moreover, consumers

nowadays ask producers, "Is all the parts used to make the product made in the home?" It is said that only products produced using the parts made in the home are genuine luxury goods.

 

Reflecting this trend, Switzerland has legally prohibited watches that do not contain at

least 80% of the parts produced directly in Switzerland from being marked as “Made in

Switzerland”.

 

In view of this global trend, it would be good to say that'factory automation', which can

produce directly in Italy while lowering the price to the level made in China, is the very

'production method' that this era demands and consumers want.

 

The 'World Lighting News' emphasized that the factory automation of Fumagalli Lighting

from an early age emphasized, "The way to prevent the offensive of low-cost products

made in China is to make products with the same price as Chinese products and high

quality of products made in one's own country." It is also in the same direction as the

proposal.

 

The only difference is that Lighting companies from all over the world did not go in this

direction, while Lighting Fumagalli Lighting went in that direction. The problem wasn't

thoughts and ideas, but action.

 

 

<Copyright ⓒ World Lighting News>
Unauthorized reproduction and redistribution prohibited.

 

 

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