PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2021

TOP TALK PETplanet Insider Vol. 22 No. 05/21 www.petpla.net 9 Many changes have been made in response to the pandemic by Heike Fischer PETplanet Insider talked with Paolo Nava, CEO of SMI S.p.A. about the past Covid year, current developments in the beverage and packaging industry and SMI’s future investment plans. PETplanet: How did SMI manage the past year during the pandemic? Paolo Nava: Covid-19 has affected life of everybody. During 2020 and still now, the way we work, shop, eat, seek medical advice, socialise, participate in sport, and entertain ourselves will all be different. SMI has been obliged to reorganise the way of working, especially for sales meet- ing and after sale services. During this period we learnt that we must be ready for every new eventuality. Over the past year hundreds of millions of people have lived through lock-downs. The future looks uncertain. We don’t know when, or if, our societies might return to normal. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the SMI Group has always been strictly compliant with all official measures and safety precau- tions taken by national and local authorities to contain and contrast the spread of the virus and to safeguard all employees. Despite the health emergency, considering that most of our customers operates in the food & beverage sector, we never stopped giving them a technical support despite a lot of restrictions and limits imposed by the new pandemic. In fact, the SMI Group, as a manufacturer of bottling and packaging machines for food & beverage, household clean- ing, personal hygiene, chemical and pharmaceutical products, belongs to the list of business activities that the Italian government authorised to go on working since it provided essential services and goods during the emer- gency. PETplanet: Italy was severely affected from the beginning and had to undergo several strict lock-downs. To what extent has the lock-down affected your infrastructure? Were you able to continue providing a response to demands from your customers worldwide? Paolo Nava: The area of Ber- gamo, where SMI is based, was among the most affected in the world by the pandemic. During that period there were a lot of difficulties in travelling to job sites, both SMI’s and our clients’ worldwide. Therefore we powered our staff of remotely-provided technical support, in order to satisfy our customer’s needs in terms of machine trouble- shooting, overhauls, start ups and any other kind of needs. Both our production and office departments were always operative throughout lock-downs and restrictions, taking all safety measures and precautions set for by the national and local authori- ties. The SMI Group has defined significant measures aimed at fighting the virus and protecting the health of employees and contractors, such as: rearrangement of production layouts, sanitisation of the premises, purchases of personal protective equipment, temperature measure- ment, circulation of hygiene rules and social distancing and remote working. That’s why in that dramatic moment we wanted to give our own contribu- tion to support, as far as possible, the improvement of the health situation in our country. Our organisation showed great empathy to the territory and to all those who were working hard to face this emergency; through a donation of € 120,000 our company SMI- Pack helped the municipality of San Giovanni Bianco to increase health measures aimed at reducing the spread of Covid-19, while a donation of € 200,000 by our company SMILab supported the well renowned Mario Negri Institute of Bergamo in the research activities aimed at defeating the virus. PETplanet: The word digitalisation is always mentioned in this context. Of course, this key term is not new in the plastics processing industry, but it is said that digitalisation has been strengthened by the pandemic. What developments do you welcome, that you already consider urgently neces- sary and where do you see no added value? Paolo Nava: In this period, characterised by restrictions to the freedom of movement in order to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus, remote communication and digitalisation have become an even more important factor to maintain good relationships with customers and provide thousands of companies all over the world with quick and efficient technical assistance. We missed a lot, and still do, interpersonal interac- tion with our customers and partners, but at least geographical distance can be easily overcome with a series of communication tools based on telephone, email, videoconferencing and augmented reality. It’s true, in the plastic industry this digital technology isn’t new and at SMI, with more than 30 years of experience and know-how relating to the advanced automation of machines and equipment, we have developed increasingly innovative and efficient hardware and software con- trol solutions. That’s why, well before pandemic, all of SMI products were equipped with IoT-embedded applications, able