Speed but also the ability to know how to wait, the rhythm of machinery, but also of music. These are just some of the dimensions which Time can assume in a company like Pirelli, and this is the central theme driving the 2019 Festival of Innovation and Science in Settimo Torinese, where the most technologically advanced production site of the group is based. Supported for the sixth consecutive year by Pirelli, this year the Festival is analysing the theme of Time in all its possible meanings: from climate change to temporal paradoxes, from comic timing to science fiction, from music to time/space travel.
A wide-ranging and fascinating subject which Pirelli is faced with on a daily basis and which involves every aspect of the business. There is, for example, Time in its meaning of its impact on the evolution of our Planet, and thus our care for the environment. In this matter, the company has for many years sought to reduce to the minimum level possible its environmental impact by making the use of increasingly efficient tyres thanks to a sustained investment in Research and Development, an area in which each year it invests over 6% of its High Value revenues. It was also as a result of this that Pirelli was recently confirmed “world leader of sustainability” in the Automobiles & Components sector within the Dow Jones Sustainability World and Europe indices.
But Time at Pirelli is also the act of waiting, the sort of waiting described in Being fast takes time, the platform which recounts the journey which begins with the rubber tree and ends in the creation of the tyre, passing through a description of the life of the rubber farmers and of the techniques for its cultivation and processing. A work which documents the slow process during which latex is extracted (around 3 hours to fill half a coconut shell), the long waits for the rubber to solidify in harmony with and in the full respect of time and the rhythms of nature, through to the end product, the tyre, that key player in the fast-moving world of sporting competitions.
It is speed, in fact, that is another of the dimensions of Time for the P Lunga, the tyre which features in the World Championships of Formula 1, for which it has been the exclusive partner since 2011, and the Superbike championship or one of the other 350 or more car or motorcycle championships in which Pirelli is present.
Time, at Pirelli, is also precision and attention to detail, such as you can find in the architects who design the treads, in the workers who participate in the ever more sophisticated manufacturing processes, in the multitude of engineers and technicians who work on increasingly complex data and models or the “Next MIRS” machines, the entirely robotised proprietary technology used by Pirelli for the manufacture of its Ultra High Performance tyres.
A Time, or tempo, in the company, which becomes rhythm and music, when musical notes and beats resonate within the factories in the way that occurred in the Industrial Centre of Settimo Torinese on the occasion of the performance of the piece entitled “Il Canto della fabbrica” (the Factory's Song) commissioned from the composer and viola player Francesco Fiore.
Time at Pirelli also refers to the period articulated by the Calendar, with its artistic and modern outlook, and especially to time taken by the people who every day make Pirelli a company which for nearly 150 years has had its eyes turned towards the future. Time in work which, thanks to smartworking offered by the company's welfare system, is easier to reconcile with time outside work.
