Metalnet: an applied research laboratory

Structure and dynamics of changes in the relationship between mechanical engineering companies

In his essay on the metalworking industry of Bergamo (1975), Sebastiano Brusco warns us that company size, in terms of employees, is not an appropriate indicator for assessing the efficiency of companies. 

First of all, enterprises with the same type of product, but of different sizes, could carry out a different composition of processing phases within them. Therefore, we need to classify companies not only with respect to their size in terms of employees and production volume (measured, in general, by a raw indicator such as the company's turnover), but also with respect to the level of vertical integration. However, the statistics do not give an adequate representation of this.
The second reason is that, if the process is technically and economically decomposable in phases, the minimum efficient phase size, and not those related to the whole process, will be the analytical reference to evaluate the efficiency of the company specialized in a particular stage of the production process.

Analysis of systemic efficiency becomes at the heart of the analysis: we must take into account what the company produces and how it produces, i. e. the production systems in which companies interact not only by trading with each other, but also by exchanging, through multiple channels, information on technology, on the final product markets, on the markets for the supply of raw materials and semi-finished products.
The analysis of the nature and forms of those interrelationships, of the institutions that favour the transmission of information, of the peculiarities of the innovative processes that can be realized within a system of enterprises with those characteristics, has been a fertile ground for discussion on local productive systems and industrial districts since the eighties.

Within that debate, at the end of the 1990s, it was developed METALnet research "Structure and dynamics of change in the relationship between metalworking companies in the province of Modena" .

METALnet's research shows that the multiplicity of products, specializations and artists of "tailor-made" production is not a sign of weakness of the local system, but rather of its peculiar strength, to be valued and preserved in the globalization of markets, where competition is no longer only between companies, but between territories with knowledge and innovative skills.
Therefore, the challenges that need to be overcome do not seem to be the same as those faced by individual companies. The challenges concern the territory in which companies operate, and therefore involve institutions that must contribute to enhance and support the networks of skills. These networks, which pass through businesses and the social system, that foster innovative processes.

These web pages collect the details related to the analytical framework proposed in the Metalnet survey: sample surveys, panel surveys, analysis of census and balance sheet data of companies, ethnographic interviews.

The collaboration of companies and their support in comparing the various phases of research is an essential support for the success of the laboratory's research projects.

Some projects are carried out in collaboration with the class of Economics and Institutions of the industrial districts (Department of Economics Marco Biagi, Unversity of Modena and Reggio Emilia).