In the year that Groeneveld Group in Gorinchem celebrates its 40th anniversary, Groeneveld Italia S.r.l. will be marking 25 years of production. Groeneveld products have been produced in Italy since 1980, but a complete new factory in northern Italy came into operation in 1986. With state of the art production facilities, an innovative research and development department and dedicated staff, nearly all Groeneveld and GreenCat products are developed and produced here. Some 40,000 automatic greasing systems are produced here every year.
Groeneveld produces and supplies a wide range of automatic greasing systems, the OilMaster oil management system, GreenSight active safety systems and cameras, speed limiters and the GreenCat On-board computers. With more than 2,500 different products and kits, the variety of Groeneveld products is as diverse as their applications. Groeneveld Italia is responsible for the direct supply of all Groeneveld and GreenCat products to the company’s own subsidiaries within the Groeneveld Group, to independent importers and to leading OEMs including Volvo, Caterpillar, Mercedes, EvoBus, DAF, MAN, VDL, Komatsu, Liebherr, Bell, JCB and many other well-established manufacturers of trucks, busses and earthmoving equipment.
In-house development and production
For many years Groeneveld has the philosophy that if you want to provide the best product, you need to develop and produce it yourself. Groeneveld therefore has its own R&D centres in the Netherlands, Israel and Italy and its own production facilities. The sensors and software for the GreenSight safety systems are produced in Israel, whilst all other Groeneveld products are manufactured in the modern factory in Cassago Brianza in northern Italy. “It’s an excellent location for a the production of products like ours,” says Groeneveld’s technical director Willem van der Hulst, who has been responsible for product development and production at the company for 30 years. “Northern Italy has a remarkable number of high quality suppliers where we have components manufactured which we assemble into finished products on our modern production lines. We are surrounded here by hundreds of large and small companies which deliver the highest quality in terms of machining metal and plastics, electronics, precision engineering and sub-assembly, for example. That makes this location in northern Italy unique in Europe.”
Quality management
Quality is very important at Groeneveld. Customers around the world rely on Groeneveld’s products and systems day in day out: in road transportation, in public transport and on the railways, earth-moving and in mining, in agriculture and in industry. Hence the highest quality standards are applied not only within Groeneveld’s own production facility - which is naturally ISO-certified - but also to the large number of suppliers.
All suppliers must meet the same highest quality standards as in the Groeneveld factory and are regularly evaluated by Groeneveld’s own quality and procurement departments. This guarantees the highest quality of the product, which forms the basis for the highest customer satisfaction.
Ready for further growth
Groeneveld Italia’s site covers a total area of 14,500 m², including 7,000 m² of buildings, with 5,600 m² dedicated to production. The facility includes a modern office building which also houses the Product Development department. In addition, Groeneveld Italia is home to the central warehouse, which forms the logistical heart of the distribution to Groeneveld’s regional logistics centres in the Netherlands, France, North America and Australia, and to a variety of importers and OEMs. The modern production facilities, which can accommodate two-shift working, and the logistics centre are fully prepared for Groeneveld’s ambitious growth plans for the coming years.
