Word: necchi
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...year, because the new machines embroider, darn, quilt, overcast, link two edges without overlapping, sew on buttons, make buttonholes-do virtually everything except dry cleaning. These wonders are mainly attributable to the invasion of foreign machines (about 1,000,000 a year), such as Italy's Necchi, which ten years ago caught staid old Singer with its slip showing. The new gadgets on Necchi and other machines shrank Singer's sales in the U.S. from its two-thirds grip of the U.S. market to one-third. Now Singer is bouncing back. It says that its Slant-O-Matic...
...Blood. In 1948 Necchi had a double stroke of good fortune with two new men. One was Leon Jolson, a Polish-born marketing expert who emigrated to the U.S., saw the possibilities of Necchi's zigzag sewing model, and brought in the first four Necchi machines (TIME, April 21, 1952). Last year his 2,268 franchised dealers in the U.S. sold some 80,000 machines, worth $32 million...
...other man was Gino Martinoli, 53, a student of American production methods who had been technical manager at the famed Olivetti Co. (TIME, Feb. 8). He became Necchi's general manager, taking over production from Vittorio Necchi, now 56, who wanted to spend more time at his villa and pheasant farm. At Necchi, Martinoli's fresh, efficient eye looked over the antique assembly methods, spotted gaps and waste from casting to cabinets. Less than ten major Italian firms use assembly lines, but Martinoli refused to believe that U.S. methods could not be applied in Italy...
...Necchi he introduced the assembly line, semi-automatic milling machines and interchangeable parts, paid the cost of retooling (about $8,000,000) out of profits. He supervised the construction of the big new factory at Pavia, and tooled up its six parallel assembly lines. He cut the time a sewing machine stays on the assembly line from 14 to 10 days, tightened up techniques so that a Necchi is built with only 15 man-hours. As a consultant, he hired N. Richard Miller, 32, a Harvard Business School graduate and production expert, to revamp production. Miller expects to increase efficiency...
Martinoli has boosted Necchi's production to 200,000 machines a year, five times what it was when he took over, now employs more than 4,300 workers and is still growing. Says he: "In our business at least, American production techniques are ideal. Our workers aren't like Swiss-patient, painstaking, precise. Our workers are like Americans-hasty, impatient, and better adapted to assembly line than to artisan work...