Can you tell us about Lu-Ve Group’s way of doing business?

LU-VE Group originated more than 32 years ago, when my father had the intuition to take over a high quality company, but then in crisis due to inappropriate management.
Under his leadership we have become one of the world’s leading manufacturers in the heat exchanger industry, present in various market segments, from commercial and industrial refrigeration to civil, industrial and precision air conditioning.
The Group today is strong with more than 2,700 employees with 80 percent of production exported to 100 countries and a turnover that will exceed 300 million euros at the end of 2018.
LU-VE means Lucky Venture, a name that really led to a lucky venture!

This extraordinary growth has been built on an important foundation made up of strong principles that our founder himself has always transferred to every activity and which can be summarized in two assumptions.

“Businesses are women, men, and ideas”-meaning that for us everything has to start with a focus on people in the way we do business.

“Gray matter is our raw material”: without ideas there is no innovation, and without innovation a company cannot grow.
But…where do ideas come from?
From people, and here we come back to our fundamental assumption that puts human resources at the center.

The vocation for innovation therefore is key for Lu-Ve: not only is it a driver of growth, but it is also a value cornerstone.
How do you develop it?

We have always opened ourselves to the outside world with a network of collaborations with research institutions and academia.
Here, too, we go back to our roots: since our founding, we have set out on a true path of collaboration with the academic and institutional world of research, thus managing to develop one of the largest R&D laboratories in Europe in our field.

This is an ongoing and multifaceted journey: recently, for example, we renewed our partnership with the Milan Polytechnic for the next three years: a more than 30-year partnership dating back to the year of its founding.

It is an R&D model that we also replicate whenever we open up globally: when we set up new companies abroad, we immediately select and then contact the best local universities, with a twofold objective: to find people and brains to hire on site and, secondly, to open ourselves up to new stimuli for product innovation.

This approach enabled us to become the first company in the world to apply cutting-edge solutions to commercial and industrial refrigeration: we introduced a new way of conceiving and making refrigeration and air conditioning products, according to cutting-edge technologies that have since become a constant reference for the entire industry.

Not only that, immersing oneself in local realities, through the involvement of local people, allows one to give, but also to receive: in India, in Chennai, we are collaborating with other companies, with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, on a pilot project on the use of new refrigerants.
In China we had interns from John Carroll University, studying to become Western managers in the country.

Does environmental value and focus on people bring innovation and growth?

Since our founding and far ahead of the rest of the industry, we have been dedicated to environmental issues, approaching sustainability in the way that suits us best, which is by putting our best brains into the field through R&D.
We were among the first in our industry to integrate environmental impact reduction goals into the business, both in terms of products and production processes, seeking to combine environmental concern with business development.

With a pioneering approach, we proposed products to the market that anticipated solutions (technical and on the use of refrigerants) that would later become a market standard.

After initial difficulties and resistance found in proposing a real “game changer,” this cutting-edge vision has been recognized by the market and has been one of the growth drivers that have enabled us to take a leadership role in the industry.

Finally, allow me to close with a reminder of the first fundamental assumption for LU-VE, “a company made up of women, men and ideas”: in today’s globalized world, attention to people goes hand in hand with valuing diversity, conceived as an asset to be cared for and harmonized.

On the one hand, our company goes to settle in very different nations, just think that we have 12 production plants in 8 different countries (Italy, China, India, Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia and the USA): as mentioned, in each we look for local partners to integrate as much as possible into the new reality.

In parallel, at our headquarters in Uboldo, in the province of Varese, we count as many as 14 different nationalities: here, too, we need to allow everyone to integrate.
We have organized Italian courses so that all workers are on an equal footing and are in the same conditions to fully understand first of all the safety rules and then also their rights.
We also used these training moments to teach the Italian Constitution and the founding norms of our country.

In terms of safety, in the Uboldo (Varese) plant we have created “training breaks”: a new way of creating a safety culture.
These are short intervals made at workstations in which to “go over” rules and operating procedures to preserve and constantly improve safety at work.
The system is so good that it has been adopted by the National Health and Safety Commission of Federmeccanica-Assistal, Fiom-Fim-Uilm as a methodology available throughout Italy for companies in the metalworking sector.

Finally, we try to set a good example: for many years we have been cooperating with the Alfa Cooperative, a social cooperative founded by doctor Antonio Gervasio, which makes it possible to bring people with mental problems into the business world, using work as therapy.