For those who don't know him, Pareto was an Italian mathematician, economist and sociologist who lived from 1848 to 1923.
While studying the distribution of wealth, he observed that in Italy, at the time, less than 20% of the population owned 80% of the land.

The observation led to the well-known Pareto principle.
In short, the principle states: "When we observe a phenomenon, most of the effects are due to a limited number of causes."

It’s also known as the 80/20 rule, is statistical and empirical in nature and can be seen in all areas, including business.
For example:
• Less than twenty percent of products produce
more than eighty percent of turnover;
• Less than twenty percent of customers produce
more than eighty percent of sales, or margins;
• Less than twenty percent of countries attract
more than eighty percent of a company's sales.

My customers work in the sheet metal products sector and Dallan is the recognized specialist in thin sheet metal.

In particular, when we or a customer had a production-related problem, 80 percent of the time it was down to one of the following reasons:
• Efficiency - linked to the waste of raw materials
and energy consumption, among others
• Productivity - starting production of a new
product or increasing volumes
• Flexibility – due to the variability of demand
and the decreasing size of batches
• Automation and Simplification - linked to problems concerning shortages of specialized technical staff and the amount of time spent handling products, which produces no added value
Efficiency is the essence of all of them: indeed, we define it as the relationship between the result obtained and the resources used to obtain it.

[Efficiency] = [Result obtained] / [Resources used to obtain it]

We use resources to obtain a result (whether it is turnover, margins or pieces produced) in every company and every business process.
The resources involved might be:
• Raw materials - including the cost of material in stock
• Energy - usually electricity and heat
• Time - linked to the principle of productivity
and flexibility
• Labor - linked to the principle of automation,
in terms of the number of employees and level
of specialization.
Therefore, efficiency increases when the same results are obtained using:
• Less raw material
• Less energy
• Less time (when we produce more efficiently)
• Less labor (or when we need less skilled labor)

Efficiency also increases when we manage to obtain a better result using the same raw materials, energy, time and labor.

In both cases, we’re talking about making processes much more profitable and significantly improving company margins.

In order to achieve a true Revolution in Efficiency, you need entrepreneurs and managers capable of being pioneers and looking beyond conventional systems and processing cycle.

For example, let's imagine we produce the same quantity of product using 16% less material: this book will explain how that’s possible.

As we’ll see, Productivity, Automation and Flexibility are closely related to each other. Therefore, solving a problem under one of these aspects also produces benefits in the others and, in general, in terms of Efficiency and business results.

The motto of one of our companies states: "We develop solutions that create value for customers."

I’ve always been convinced that the solutions we provide must be environmentally sustainable, while generating results and value at the same time.

Together with our customers, out in the field, we’ve seen that the right technologies always achieve great results: economic, organizational, in the quality of work and by consuming far less raw material and energy than traditional systems.

I had started writing this book to tell my children the story of how and why I chose my studies, my job and to tell the story of our companies.

Many of my teachers appeared in the story, although I’m not talking about school teachers or university lecturers.

My teachers were people like Bernhard Kuntscher, who supervised me on my first job in Warema. People like Giovanni Maffei, who explained the concepts of efficiency, automation and parametric programming.

This book contains lots of practical uses of the various concepts and you’ll come across the stories of great industrialists: I think that an entrepreneur's job is to continue learning and I’ve learned a lot from them.

Testing new solutions - using machines and systems that were not available on the market - in person, together with companies, was a very tough way to learn, but the best there is.

As my father says: "Every man forms himself through hard daily experiences".

I’ll also illustrate certain principles of Lean Production applied to the world of thin sheet metal processing, although these methods can be used on any type of sheet metal or metal product.

I’ve left the initial story as it was, adding to it in the chapters dedicated to the four fundamental concepts of Efficiency, Productivity, Flexibility and Automation.

The central part of the book shows how these concepts become extraordinary production machines, such as the Coil to Punch/Laser, Coil To Window, Coil To Pack and Coil to Box systems.

The last part of the book contains some of the tools I use to:
• Calculate the raw material savings obtained with a new system;
• Calculate the hourly cost of a system;
• Calculate the total production cost;
• Calculate the size and length of the coils to organize production;
• Calculate the payback of a system;
• Perform a Make or Buy analysis;
• Calculate the advantage of roll forming over bending;
• Calculate the advantage of coil-fed punching over sheet-fed punching and stamping;
• Advanced decision-making techniques.