“Aluminium is substituting a lot of steel component, and this is the reason why the market is growing so fast,” Roberto Forcella, President of Lucchini RS Tool Steel S.r.l, Italy

Mr. Roberto Forcella, Commercial and Marketing Director of Lucchini RS SpA, President of Lucchini Tool Steel, and a Board member of Lucchini Beijing, Lucchini Poland, Lucchini Sweden, Lucchini India, represented the Italian manufacturing company at this year’s METEF exhibition held in Verona, Italy. He oversees the business for Lucchini’s entire range of products- Steel, Railways, Forging and Casting.

Mr. Roberto Forcella started his career in the industry with Italsider, an Italian steel company, as quality controller for steel making and forging production, and then proceeded as Quality Manager for rolling stock materials. In 1980 he moved to the Sales department dedicated to the Italian market. When Terni Group took over the Lovere plant, he became Sales Responsible for all rolling stock products. At the beginning of the ’90s, as Lucchini created a railways division of rail and rolling stock, he was nominated Sales Manager. Since 1999, he is Commercial Director for the whole range of products of Lucchini RS.

AlCircle had the opportunity to interview Mr. Forcella at Metef 2017. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

AlCircle: Why are you interested in the non-ferrous sector? What kind of products are you developing?

Mr. Forcella: Lucchini RS is a company dedicated to the production of steel products focussed in the railways business and also in forging and casting steel materials. For this reason LucchiniRS is organized in two divisions- one is Railways (wheels-axles-tyres-wheelsets) and the second is forging and casting products. The Company follows these different markets using its integrated production facilities, starting from steel to the finished and assembly product.  We are an international qualified and certified Company, able to approach and serve the main sophisticated markets. For example Lucchini RS is the leader of railway high speed wheels and axles.

The  reason of our presence in Metef Exhibition is in connection with the tool steels manufactured by Lucchini RS in Lovere (Italy) and Lucchini Mamé Forge (Italy),  were we make the materials manufactured for Tool Steels business, for plastic moulds, hot-work and die casting application.

Using its internal laboratories of R&D, Lucchini RS is actually one of the manufacturers able to produce very specialized steel products and these steel products are used in different kinds of moulding business.  Our tool steels find wide usage in aluminium die-casting, and we are interested in further exploring the domain.

The Lovere steel mill produces high special grade steel using EAF (electric arc furnace), LF (Ladle Furnace), Tank Degassing VD-VOD, pits for bottom pouring for ingots with max weight 60 tons. The ingots are forged in two Italian sites (Lucchini RS Lovere and Lucchini Mamè Forge) using open die presses of 3200/4200/6000 ton and later the pieces are submitted to the heat treatment and final machining.

The products are dedicated to different market segments: Oil & gas, petrochemicals, power generation, high tech engineering, shipbuilding & cement works, and, as already mentioned, plastic moulds, hot-work and die casting application.

AlCircle: Which are the emerging markets Lucchini RS is looking at?

Mr. Forcella: We have mainly 2 big steel families- one family devoted to plastic applications and another family for ferrous and non-ferrous casting activities. Using our special steel tools aluminium castings can be produced for a large range of applications. We have an answer practically for any tools requirement.

Lucchini RS is capable of customizing its products under different world specifications, particularly for the EU, China and USA market. Today we are in the position to collect the topmost requirements in the world.

We distribute tool steels through our company service distributors, spread across the world. We have distributors based in Europe, India, Turkey, China, and other countries. We are open to receiving all the requirements coming from any emerging market for any specific application or for distribution in that region.

AlCircle: Tell us something about the recent advancements made by your Research and Development wing. 

Mr. Forcella: We have been promoting Research and Development since 1990. Our R&D department studies metallurgical laboratories different kinds of grade steel that we are able to propose to our customer. We have some agreement and joint ventures with Universities and some specialist companies. We promote testing together in order to combine the characteristics of our research with their years’ of experience in producing different products or materials, so that we are better able to serve our customers.

AlCircle: Do you collaborate with any university?

Mr. Forcella: We have joined hands with some of the top technical universities of Italy and Germany. We have technology collaboration with a premiere institute of Zurich for the Railways division. Some of our experts are also associated as faculties with these institutes. We are also co-operating with the main Chinese Centre of Rolling stock Research. In co-operation with Universities and external technicians Lucchini RS publishs a yearly LRS-Techno book distributed to customers, students and passionately fond of steel matter.

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AlCircle: Is there any particular area of applications where you expect a strong growth for your products?

Mr. Forcella: In aluminium, die casting is the area where we intend to further optimise the characteristics of the products with their performance.

AlCircle: Any particular geographical area you think holds prospects for Lucchini’s business?

Mr. Forcella: Currently, we are mainly operating in the European market with focus on Italy, Germany, Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, and Turkey. We are already selling our products in China. In India, we have our distributors and service centre. They are mainly right now dedicated to the plastic mould activities. But we already started with die casting.

AlCircle: How do you understand that aluminium sector can be a driving force the market globally?

Mr. Forcella: Expectations are very high; mainly because our company have the expertise to make the best steel tools for this application.

AlCircle: Do you think that aluminium casting products will slowly replace steel in various automotive, aerospace, and railway applications?

Mr. Forcella: Aluminium is substituting a lot of steel components. And this is the reason why the market is growing so fast. The challenge for us would be to approach this market wisely, not only by offering what we are already manufacturing but also by innovating with new solutions. We need technical assistance of specialist companies so that we can develop together superior products because, market is changing every day. And to cater to this fast changing market we need to improve our expertise properly. We have to adapt our solutions to those requirements to serve our markets in a better way.

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