Research and Innovation, GCF future
Development strategies for Rossi Group
A healthy company that consolidates the growth and highly focuses on innovation. Rossi Group, in the traditional annual convention, shows its cards and confirms the development strategies that led GCF and Gefer, the two companies specialized in railway construction, to be among the top Builders.
Important numbers that, in brief, assert the growth trend of the last year, despite the moment of strong crisis and financial stress that involved the entire building sector in the last semester.
“The 2018 financial statements -explained the President Edoardo Rossi – consolidates on 385 millions, 19 millions less compared to 2017, however it is a regular drop due to the conclusion of some important orders. Same applies for the number of employees that, with minimum discard, confirms over 1,000 units”.
The works portfolio is also solid, which counts over 1,125 billion Euros of orders acquired from 2019 to 2024, in Italy (695 millions) and abroad (430), with a net prevalence of orders in the Railway Construction sector – which is still the main one with 961 millions- and growth signals were also registered in the Electric Traction and above all, Signalling sectors.
GCF will open construction sites in new foreign Countries in 2019 and will establish and consolidate new strategies in order to compete for the acquisition of important orders in new markets or segments.
“A strong boost – explains Alessandro Rossi, GCF Director of the Technological system and Innovation Department – the Group is also focusing on investments in Research and Development. In the future, we will not only open up to new types of services that we started in construction and maintenance, but above all, we will implement some important innovations developed in the Signalling sector: the experiments on-site will soon be completed, and the most peculiar productions of our companies will be able to be fully implemented”.
Among the novelties of 2019, in strong continuity with the investments started the last few years, the number of machineries which the Group requires to face the capacity and possibility to handle numerous and challenging construction and renovation projects in Italy and abroad, was increased. In addition to 105 million Euros invested in the 2015-2018 period, 2 additional trains of 350 cv will be introduced in the next months in GCF's construction sites, an additional ballast cleaner Matisa C75, 4 new tamping machines (two Plasser 09-32-CSM Dynamic, 1 Matisa B66 with trolley and one Matisa B45), a Vaiacar welder, 3 self-propelled trailers, 1 P20 coach, 20 railway wagons, 2 Aragosta Vaiacar.
Great novelties also for the railway workshop Gefer in Novi Ligure which acquired a new area to build a shed for the maintenance of vehicles.
We are investing a lot of time, money and efforts in this project - underscores President Edoardo Rossi - because we deem extremely important and fundamental to ensure the absolute efficiency of the machines and trains that we bring to our construction sites. Safety for us is first of all a moral and ethical commitment, which prevails over legal duties. Each of our efforts is and will always be focused on protecting the safety of who works for us, at any cost and as much as possible".