Satisfaction and results do not come by chance, but only after great commitment, hard work and a bit of luck… you need that too…
About two years ago we were contacted by a company in Florence that deals with the recovery of precious metals, a new sector for us, which we knew existed but for which we had never worked directly with our systems.
We make an appointment with the customer at their headquarters in Florence, with the aim of better understanding their needs and personally viewing a company in this sector which was new to us.
Clearly during the preliminary phone calls some aspects remained difficult to understand and only by seeing them in person would it be possible to realize the real needs and standards that each specific sector sets according to the regulations and in compliance with the processes that are carried out.
More specifically, this company deals with the recovery of precious metals from processing waste from the goldsmith and high fashion industries, but also and above all from spent catalysts used by the pharmaceutical industries.
A world apparently far from ours in which attention to the microscopic element is fundamental, unlike the realities for which we normally design and build systems where we are talking about tons of metallic material. While here the spotlight is on the gram and on not losing even a single speck of precious material.
The owner and the director of the plant welcome us with great kindness and take us to visit the entire production department, illustrating the processes, the processes and all the problems related to this type of separation of materials.
At the same time, they showed us their needs and their ideas of how they wanted to expand production, starting by talking to us about the technology they had thought of using for the new plants for the recovery of precious metals they needed.
Initially we couldn’t understand why they had contacted us, in fact everything seemed already defined and very simple, there was nothing to invent, it was all calculated very precisely, we were consequently a little amazed and surprised by this, however we continued listen to their project ideas to try to understand better.
Time passes quickly and the time comes to return, a very interesting day for sure, but all these new notions, ideas, technologies and certainties had us a bit hypnotized and in the end it seemed incredible but we didn’t actually understand what we could do for them.
As on many occasions, the mind must be given time to process the notions and then begin to ask itself questions to answer, and in the following days all these ideas begin to emerge and the project begins to be clearer and more understandable for us too .
Everything they had explained to us was very beautiful but… impossible to achieve. Yes, that’s right, in particular one of the machines (an oven) could not be made in that way with that particular technology required since it could have triggered an explosion with unpredictable consequences in the production process chain.
Clearly it was not easy to explain this aspect to a potential client, and to admit that all his certainties only generated great doubts for us and led us to the conclusion that it was extremely difficult and complex to achieve what they were asking of us.
A working acquaintance therefore started not very well, it couldn’t have gone worse, if we then add that the machine in question (the oven) was under construction and almost finished the tension was quite high, but in the end we were consoled by the fact that we were only spectators of a story that didn’t belong to us at that moment. They certainly wouldn’t have entrusted us with any work, but given that there was a high probability of explosion it was our duty to warn them of this and advise them to change course by not installing the new oven which was now ready.
Together with this advice we also provided the contact of one of the leading exponents of Atex legislation on explosive environments, suggesting that we carry out a check to evaluate together with him what our thesis was.
For various reasons, including confidentiality, we cannot describe the production and plant engineering process linked to the recovery of these metals, so we make a leap in time arriving at the end of this experience, which started in a very particular way but then evolved and became a positive and also special story to tell, where the most beautiful thing is the trust that has been established between us and the customer.
The customer eventually understood that our doubts and perplexities were well founded, and even if it was uncomfortable and difficult to accept, we still exposed our idea of creating a production process that was the opposite of his.
This experience ends with an unexpected twist. In fact, in the end the customer accepted our thesis, and the working relationship became official with the design and construction of a new plant for the recovery of precious metals.
With sincerity, and in the customer’s interest, we did what was right to do, and we were rewarded with an ongoing collaboration that is still alive today, thus creating three new systems and replacing an old one with a new one of our own.
It goes without saying that luck is needed, but it alone would not have led us to do what was done. Seriousness, work and constant commitment every day did everything else.
