BTSR and LATI – A 20 Year Partnership
BTSR International SpA, headquartered in Olgiate Olona(Varese, Italy), manufactures high-quality electronic devices using a wide variety of carefully-selected conductive structural thermoplastic compounds with high dimensional stability, produced by LATI Industria Termoplastici SpA. This partnership between BTSR and LATI is about more than just technical and business matters. Indeed, it is based on shared ideas and values, all sustainability oriented.
Passion, innovation and technology: these are the factors driving the development of BTSR, which has both its main headquarters and its production facilities in Olgiate Olona, the Italian province of Varese. The company is led by its visionary, forward-looking and passionate CEO, Tiziano Barea, who founded this jewel of Italian industry in 1979, and has gone on investing in, innovating and driving the growth of his company ever since.
BTSR, whose name is an acronym for Best Technology Study Research, designs and produces electronic sensors and smart systems for monitoring yarn flow and controlling feed tension, as well as the main quality parameters of all types of yarn: traditional, but also elastomer, glass fibre and carbon fibre yarns. The company’s first patent dates back to 1981 and it now has around 500 others registered worldwide.
BTSR uses a wide range of selected engineering polymers, and for more than twenty years has collaborated with the Research & Development and Technical Support teams of LATI Industria Termoplastici SpA, one of Europe’s top producers of engineering thermoplastics. Headquartered in Vedano Olona, LATI is led by CEO Michela Conterno, representing the third generation of the Conterno family.
BTSR sets out the problems, needs and requirements of its given product or customer, and LATI responds by providing the material offering the best performance. To shield the electronics in these machines from electromagnetic radiation, BTSR uses only steel fibre-reinforced compounds for the bodies and lids of its devices. For applications needing structural rigidity as much as electrical conductivity, it opts for resins such as PPS and PEEK, or ones containing carbon fibres. BTSR uses electrically conductive compounds to prevent electrostatic charges, and therefore dust, from building up as a result of contact between machine moving parts and the yarn. PPS and PEEK are also used to manage abrasion due to the movement of the yarn. In situations characterised by the possibility of impulsive stress, technical elastomers are used that, together with the polymer resins, allow impacts and vibrations to be absorbed without causing breaks. Basically, an ad hoc formula and solution can be found for every need.
The partnership between BTSR and LATI is actually about far more than just technical and business matters. Indeed, it is rooted in shared values and ideas, first and foremost an interest in and commitment to sustainability, both social and environmental. This is illustrated by Generazione d’Industria, the project started up around a decade ago by several companies linked to the Varese manufacturers’ association (UNIVA) that were led, in this initiative, by none other than Tiziano Barea, founder and CEO of BTSR. From the outset, the project’s aim was to spread business culture in schools, so that, in Barea’s words, “the best companies and the best students might meet”. Over the ten years since its launch, Generazione d’Industria has awarded scholarships to 500 students from 17 technical high schools in the Varese area and involved 63 industrial companies, including LATI, which participates actively in the project.
BTSR is therefore an enterprise that, alongside selected partners like LATI, plans to go on growing and innovating in an environmentally sustainable way, for the good of those who work for the company as well as the world in which we live.
BTSR and LATI have a longstanding relationship that is based on trust, high-added-value solutions, and shared values. I respect Tiziano Barea enormously, both for his capacity for innovation and for his human qualities: he is a responsible entrepreneur, who pursues both technological and social progress. I well remember his committed and constant efforts within Confindustria (Italian manufacturers’ association) and his keenness to encourage the professional development of youngsters through the “Generazione d’Industria” work experience scheme for high school students, as well as his work for the executive board of LIUC. Another thing we have in common is a love of our local area, which Tiziano “cultivates” on his Montemagno estate, an absolute gem. So, here’s to our collaboration!” says Michela Conterno, CEO of LATI Industria Termoplastici.
“BTSR has always sought to a establish a relationship of collaboration, a partnership if you like, with all its strategic suppliers. In other words, a relationship built on commitment and mutual respect that allows us to take on challenges and find innovative high-tech solutions. LATI has proved to be the perfect partner, willing to listen to us and committed to supporting BTSR whatever its needs, looking for polymer compounds able to resolve the most complex technological applications.
LATI embraced the fantastic “Generazione d’Industria” project from the outset and, through UNIVA, I have been delighted and privileged to witness its birth and development. Today, all the technical and commercial high schools in the province of Varese take part in this project, together with the area’s most innovative and successful companies. It is a merit-based initiative: the best students are enabled to meet the best local companies. In this way, these companies will, in the future, have people ideally placed to promote the growth and development of our area.
I particularly wish to thank Michela Conterno for her friendship, her help on a technological level, and her hard work for UNIVA and as member of the board of LIUC, our university, created by businesses for businesses, to boost knowledge and entrepreneurial initiative and train our future managers” says Tiziano Barea, president and CEO of BTSR INTERNATIONAL SpA.
