PIRELLI PRESENTS ‘DIGITAL SOLUTIONS CENTER’ IN BARI
LAUNCHES PROJECTS IN DATA ANALYSIS, SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT AND
MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHMS FOR THE INTELLIGENT FACTORY AND EVOLVED PRODUCTS
THE HEADQUARTERS, ALREADY OPERATIONAL AND INAUGURATED TODAY, WILL EMPLOY AT LEAST 50 PEOPLE BY 2025
Bari, 2 December 2022 – Pirelli today presented its Digital Solutions Center Pirelli (DSC) in Bari, the first development centre entirely focused on digital innovation, born with the goal of enriching internal skills in the most strategic areas for Pirelli.
The Pirelli Digital Solutions Center, an example of joint effort between the public and private sectors and the academic world, was announced last May and is today operational. The first ten employees, destined to become at least 50 from now until 2025, are already involved in the development of software and algorithms destined for the most advanced processes of planning, manufacturing and marketing of the group’s tyres throughout the world.
The presentation included remarks via video from Marco Tronchetti Provera, Pirelli Executive Vice Chairman and CEO, and the participation in person of Andrea Casaluci, Pirelli General Manager Operations, Michele Emiliano, President of the Apulia region, Eugenio Di Sciascio, Deputy Mayor of Bari, and Pier Paolo Tamma, Pirelli Chief Digital Officer. The event also involved Stefano Bronzini, Dean of the University of Bari and Francesco Cupertino, Dean of the Bari Polytechnic.
Among the key projects being developed at the Pirelli Digital Solutions Center, there is the further strengthening of the Big Data platform for the collection, transformation and analysis of all the data from the company’s various ecosystems. This instrument enables the processing of algorithms to speed up product development times, further improve its quality, maximize machine efficiency, optimize commercial effectiveness and create new digital services. In addition, thanks to the new algorithms – supporting all company and factory functions – Pirelli will be able to conduct studies directly on the tyre’s “Digital Twin”, the digital replica of the physical product that enables the design and development of new performance analyses on virtual prototypes. In addition, thanks to the Industrial Internet of Things it will be possible to optimize the supply chain through predictive modelling of demand and improve production processes, predict maintenance of machinery with benefits in terms of cost and development times and savings of energy consumption and transformation costs.
The centre can count on a number of technologies including those of the Innovation room, a space which allows true digital co-working between employees in Bari and the around 500 people of the Pirelli Digital Team worldwide. It will also permit interaction with Pirelli Headquarters, Pirelli’s 18 plants in the world, suppliers, clients and the various university hubs with which the company collaborates in open innovation projects and skills’ exchange.
The University of Bari and the Bari Polytechnic are taking leading roles in the space at Via Mazzitelli, so much so that it includes an area to host working teams from both universities, which include training in digital skills among their excellent educational programs. With the University of Bari and with the Bari Polytechnic Pirelli in finalizing two cooperation projects aimed, respectively, at optimizing production processes in the factories through the development of smart manufacturing systems and support digitalization and artificial intelligence in the various phases of a tyre’s development.
The cooperation program with the two academies entails, in addition, courses with the participation of Pirelli managers, the realization of other joint research and development projects and initiatives such as career days, seminars and hackathons, as well as internship programs and funding for research doctorates.
The development of the DSC consolidates the ties between Pirelli and the world of universities and strengthens the open innovation model that today sees the company at work in around 58 projects with 12 universities. The cooperation of the Digital area with the academic world and completes that of Pirelli Research & Development, with its 13 internal research centres which employ over 2,000 people worldwide. In Italy, in particular, Pirelli already actively cooperates with the Milan Polytechnic, the Turin Polytechnic, the Bocconi University, Milan’s Cattolica University, the University of Turin, the University of Pisa and the University of Milan Bicocca.
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Marco Tronchetti Provera, Executive Vice Chairman and CEO of Pirelli, said, “When an idea comes to fruition in a short time it is always a source of pride. We wanted to create a place where new resources and young talents can contribute to the digital transformation of Pirelli, the basis of industry today. Today this place exists and participates fully in the projects that our Digital team is carrying forward around the world. I wish to thank the regional authorities of the Apulia region and the city of Bari for their contribution to making all of this possible, and the academic centres of Bari for contributing their skills and knowledge to a project that enables the enhancement of the entire of the Apulia territory and Italian industry in the world”.
Michele Emiliano, President of the Apulia Region, said, “The challenge of digital transformation and innovation that the entire Country faces, finds Apulia ready and ready to take a leading role. The digital centre that we are inaugurating today thanks to public-private synergies that favoured and accelerated
This important investment by Pirelli is testament to the Apulia region’s capacity to look to the future and target innovative sectors that are able to involve and grow the region’s human capital. Our students, our youth can in this way strengthen their skills and build a life’s project in their own land.”
Antonio Decaro, Mayor of Bari, said, “It is an honour for our city to host the digital solution center of such a prestigious company and world famous brand as Pirelli. We are sure that this new structure will contribute to the growth of our territory both in terms of skills and resources and in terms of attractiveness to other investors who may follow the same path. In recent years, it was the first investments that attracted new companies and favour new developments in research such as to make Bari today the seventh hub in terms of investment in the Italian IT sector. This result I believe is a first important threshold for a southern city which only a few years ago few people were aware of and which is working to enhance the skills and talents that young people are no longer forced to leave but can also choose to return.”
Alessandro Delli Noci, Regional Councilor for Economic development, said, “Pirelli’s investment in Apulia confirms our region’s ability to attract important groups at the national and international level. Investments like this, which we have a duty to favour, enables us to aim for the development of skills and make Apulia an innovation hub”.
Eugenio Di Sciascio, Deupty Mayor of Bari, said, “The inauguration of the Pirelli digital solutions centre brings a new important piece to the panorama of innovative companies that are choosing Bari as their location, thanks to the presence of universities, polytechnics, research centres and the attention that our institutions give to new companies that decide to locate in the city. We intend to continue more than ever with our efforts to attract new investments and provide support and partnership to the entities, like Pirelli, who have already chosen us. Digital transformation, the centrality of data to the development of corporate business, will find in our region an ecosystem and talents that are ready to tackle the challenges of change”.
Stefano Bronzini, Dean of Bari University, said “Working shoulder to shoulder with an historic company like Pirelli is reason for pride and great satisfaction. That satisfaction one feels when you realize that you can make a commitment to something big, a success, to design a better future for many of our young people, to work for the development of the region which has so much to offer. Research, innovation, training, these are the areas of cooperation between the University of Bari and Pirelli. A multi-disciplinary cooperation which involves different areas of study for a virtuous contamination of languages and knowledge. The Digital Solutions Center just inaugurated is just the beginning of a path and represents the locus of cooperation between students, university researchers and Pirelli professionals in challenging fields. And great challenges are met by working together and contributing, each for their own part, to civil, societal and economic growth. Welcome Pirelli.”
Francesco Cupertino, Dean of the Bari Polytechnic, said, “Pirelli’s investment in Bari is a new step on the path of an historic Italian company which became a multi-national and which continues to evolve, to keep up with the times. As the Polytechnic of Southern Italy, born to sustain the region’s development, we greatly appreciate he decision to launch a digital skills’ centre because it will not only be an instrument for the further growth and competitiveness of Pirelli. The Digital Solutions Center will be in fact an aggregator of skills and ideas for the region’s young talents, an experiment in open innovation in line with universities’ new models of applied research. Sustainable development is not an abstract concept, but a solid goal for change, which we can achieve with the right synergies between public and private”.