A modern, open, connected space to develop and innovate in

The inauguration of Euronda’s new headquarters was marked by a big party on 15 September. This was an important evening for the company, which, 43 years on from its foundation, is now a leading manufacturer of disposable medical devices and sterilisation equipment, with branches and distributors in the main European and international markets.

During the celebrations, the speeches given by the shareholders, in particular Paola Montagnani and Renato Basso, looked back over the most important stages in the company’s growth, highlighting the values that have inspired it in the past and will act as a beacon for its future plans.

This past has been – and the future will be – all about ideas and challenges, and above all people and commitment. And there’s one recurring feature that’s marked this success story: an unwavering eye on the company’s values, accurately summed up by Renato Basso in three simple, essential concepts: “Innovation. Quality. Productivity.”

“This evening is the celebration of a long story, an adventure that began 43 years ago in two small rooms in Vicenza, in Via Cantarane 14”.

This was how Paola Montagnani began her speech for the inauguration of the new headquarters. The daughter of Gino Montagnani, the company’s founder, Paola is today one of the shareholders in a company she grew up getting to know and love.

Via Cantarane 14: where it all began. Two small rooms in Vicenza, measuring just a few square metres. This was where the company took its first steps on the dental market. Dental compressors, negatoscopes, x-ray envelopes and other radiology accessories were the first products to be packaged and loaded by Gino Montagnani into his car. From there, off he drove to Milan to go round the doors of the dental practices. It was hard work, but it also gave him a unique opportunity to come into direct contact with the market, indeed with the individual dentists and their everyday requirements.

Some time later, the space in Via Cantarane had become insufficient, so it was time for a change. Gino Montagnani opted for Montecchio Precalcino, a small village that even today has a population of no more than 5000. So the company moved, and had plenty of ideas.

In 1975 came the game-changing idea. There was a need for something new, something unique; something that would make life easier for dentists. Something practical, safe and functional. These were the years of Montedison, of polymers, of new materials that were gradually replacing more traditional ones. So the company came up with the idea of launching a new generation of disposable saliva ejectors to replace those in metal.

“Because until then – in the words of Renato Basso, a long-standing shareholder of Euronda – the saliva ejectors in dental surgeries were made of steel, and had to be sterilised. Sure, steel lasts forever, but apart from the fact it’s more expensive and feels cold in the patient’s mouth, the dry sterilisation process used in those days was harder work and more time-consuming.”

The months that followed were frantically busy: analyses, trade fairs, the competition on a market where, at international level, other companies were moving in the same direction. The company had to move fast, find the right materials and suppliers, come up with the procedures, the tools and the workforce to assemble the product.

“Thinking back on it today, it might raise a smile”, recalls Paola Montagnani. “We had a line that produced saliva ejectors that were then capped by hand at home by the families in the village, and a department with four very fast-working ladies who soldered the caps to the tube one at a time.”

Renato Basso smiles at the memory of those years. We often talk about the link between companies and their local area, and in the case of Euronda, this relationship ran deep, and proved hugely important: in those years, the Euronda saliva ejectors were made with the collaboration of much of the village. The components were assembled and the caps soldered on the company premises, but all the product packaging operations were carried out externally, in the homes in the village.

The packaging and the saliva ejectors were distributed among the families in the village, and in the evenings, in their living rooms, instead of doing something like knitting, they would sit down and pack the ejectors one by one and then hand them over to the “man with the van” who came regularly to pick them up.

As the years went by, Euronda worked on optimising the production processes and extending the range of products, and the dental compressors were joined by ceiling lights for the dental clinic, radiology accessories and surgical suction cannulas.

The 1980s began with a trip to the USA: the new project was linked to disposable towels. Euronda first entered the market as a distributor, and shortly afterwards, with its partners in the US, founded PaperSan and became the first company in Europe to produce disposable towels for the dental sector.

Saliva ejectors and disposable towels were Euronda’s first ground-breaking products, but the company did not stop there, rising to the challenge of broadening its impressive product range even further.  In the years that followed, the company expanded internationally, with branches and distributors in the world’s main markets.

In the early 1990s, Euronda reviewed and reorganised the future of its business. From then on, the company’s mission would be to combat infections and guarantee complete protection for the dental surgery, with an advanced range of disposable products and devices for the sterilisation process: ultrasonic cleaning tanks, sealing devices, sterilisation pouches and rolls, chemiclaves and hydroclaves.

A new market had opened up: sterilisation. This also proved a successful venture, and in 1997 Euronda set another new record, innovating the sealing technology with a heating cartridge that replaced the Teflon tape. The Euroseal 2001 remains the world’s best-selling thermosealing machine to this day, with over 100,000 on the market.

The early 2000s saw the launch of the new generation of E9 autoclaves, the first to be fitted with a complete Inspection System, invented by Euronda, and the first to develop the data traceability and tracking system on an adhesive label.

2008, the year of colour! The Euronda Monoart line introduced a burst of colour into the disposable range, with saliva ejectors, cannulas, towels, aprons, cups… and the market would never be the same again.

Once again, Euronda ushered in an authentic revolution, introducing a new style concept able to bring a personal touch to the dental practice that would then be emulated by all the other companies in the sector. It was a success!

“Day after day, with hard work and a desire to make it on the part of many of us, something has changed. Indeed, a great deal has.  There has been a rise in the number of products offered and made by the company, we have expanded the markets served and set up branches in the most interesting countries to sell our full range of products.

Paola Montagnani is right: in the last decade, Euronda has expanded its production capacity. The range of disposable products responds to the various needs of a dental clinic, from saliva ejectors to towels, aprons (with the unique, exclusive embossing) and instant ice.

The Euronda Alle line introduced by the company offers a full range of disposable products to ensure asepsis for dental surgery.

Likewise, the sterilisation line offers a variety of types of product for each stage ­ cleaning, packaging and sterilisation ­ and brings an extremely innovative approach to the concepts of safety, process optimisation and tracking.

“In a word, we’ve “grown”, with a lot of sacrifices and a lot of hard work, but almost without realising it. So we’ve outgrown the premises in Via dell’Artigianato, which has become too small for our plans.”

And here we are today, looking forward to a bright future in these new headquarters we were determined to design and create: a modern, functional, connected facility.

An open, dynamic structure conceived to network the entire Euronda community.

A place to meet and exchange ideas, to help each other develop and grow, with areas dedicated to training, an events arena, a showroom and numerous areas for commercial dealings and teamwork.

These headquarters will also be more efficient, able to connect and bring together offices, production and warehouse all in one place, optimising storage and production and automation methods.

As Renato Basso suggested at the end of his speech:

“We now have a new headquarters. A well positioned production facility. An efficient logistics facility. An able management at the head of each department. This headquarters must be the place where the company and all tits people can find fresh motivation and a driver for change, for new programmes and projects.

This facility is dedicated to the Euronda community: the human strength behind this company. This is the motor that will be bringing as much dynamism as possible to the company’s new look. Thank you, everyone.”

24/09/2018