What if updating your wardrobe could also do good?
Spiinted is our clothing and accessories swap, inspired by Vinted (but with an SPII twist).
Colleagues exchanged clothes and jewelry in great condition, and many remaining items were donated to Società San Vincenzo De Paoli in Saronno, supporting vulnerable families.
✨ A special kids’ corner was also set up, with colors, stickers, and fun activities for the little ones who joined the event.
A moment of sharing and sustainability: small actions, big impact.
PMI Day 2025 – Industriamoci!https://www.spii.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/1737621585193-2.jpg20481117SpiiSpiihttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f3895a2bab0a50eb2964d87f4fe736a45f9970281e91c5f5ef564898ce8ab842?s=96&d=mm&r=g
After last month’s success, we were excited to welcome another 8th grade class from the Leonardo Da Vinci School in Saronno, accompanied by teachers Maria Enrica Lazzaretti and Antonella Napolitano.
Thanks to the initiative promoted by Confindustria Varese, the students had the opportunity to get to know our company and explore SPII’s production activities up close, presented by our various work teams. They were welcomed by Fulvia Richiardi from Confindustria, our CEO Silvio Zuffetti and our colleague Federica Formato, who guided them throughout the visit.
A valuable experience to bring young people closer to the business world and inspire future generations!
THE RAILWAY WORKERS BEEShttps://www.spii.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/banco-figo-OK-1.jpg1472991SpiiSpiihttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f3895a2bab0a50eb2964d87f4fe736a45f9970281e91c5f5ef564898ce8ab842?s=96&d=mm&r=g
WHAT ARE YELLOW MACHINES?
Operating machines, also known as “yellow machines“, are used for the maintenance of the railway infrastructure. Although there is no regulatory reference that imposes this color scheme, these machines must be visible and recognizable from a long distance; hence, the yellow.
Traditionally, this color is believed to be the best for this purpose and is associated, in other sectors as well, with a warning signal. Red, on the other hand, is associated with a danger sign (for example, just think that in the past there was an Italian technical prescription that required the presence of a red panel on the front of the vehicle for all locomotives circulating in Italy).
Paddington Station – Elisabeth Line – London. Source: Costain.com
Historically, for example, even the trains of the Elisabeth Line in London had to be equipped with a yellow front panel to increase thevisibility of the vehicle. In fact, starting from the 50s of the last century, the first electric and diesel trains were born and they were much more quieter than their steam predecessors. This standard has recently been superseded thanks to the development of new technologies in the field of lighting and, therefore, of the increasingly advanced headlights of the train. It is therefore the direct railway operators who are currently responsible for making vehicles safe and must ensure that these are sufficiently visible.
Yellow machines are therefore vehicles that, like trains, travel on tracks and are used in many different applications; by way of example: grass cutting, construction of the catenary, tamping of the tracks, construction of new lines or renewal of existing ones; This last operation consists in the replacement of worn rails, an activity that, until the last century, was done by hand! (as you can see in numerous westerns).
Workers involved in the construction of a railway. Source: Farwest.it
Although they are little known, even among fans of the sector, they are essential and, like industrious bees, they work silently to ensure the efficiency and safety of railway lines.
Often these machines operate concurrently with other vehicles in service, in an almost totally automated way, and are subjected to stringent criteria of environmental respect (minimization of noise, dust and vibrations). It happens that they find themselves operating in the city center, in the presence of historic buildings, or in tunnels, with consequent logistical difficulties in the handling of machines and materials.
These are very complex vehicles. Suffice it to say that a renovating train, whose function is to replace worn rails and sleepers with new parts, is made up of: 1 locomotive, 10 transporter wagons, 1 renovating train, 1 pandrol clipping machine, cranes. And if this was not enough, following the renovating train there are profiling machines, tamping machines and a welder.
The fleet of operating vehicles is very numerous: the machines authorized by RFI are currently more than 9,000 but further upgrades and investments are planned for new ones such as trailers, wagons / carriages, positioning machines, re-laying trains, locomotives and weeder trains.
And for this multitude of yellow cars, there are as many operators in the sector who have to interface with these trains every day.
OUR MISSION
Our mission is in fact to create the best conditions for interaction between person and machine, of any kind.
We design and manufacture driver desks around the driver, to facilitate driving operations and require minimal effort of the operator. The design and layout of the driving position are therefore conceived to “embrace” the human, who every day has to interact with a machine that combines the complexity of a railway vehicle with that of an operating machine.
We use cutting-edge technologies in order to meet high quality and reliability standards, in compliance with all the sector regulations, in order to create something innovative and that really improves the working conditions of train drivers around the world.
How many things can you do with your feet?https://www.spii.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/pedale.jpg1000600SpiiSpiihttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f3895a2bab0a50eb2964d87f4fe736a45f9970281e91c5f5ef564898ce8ab842?s=96&d=mm&r=g
The human foot is a work of art and an engineering masterpiece (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
How many actions do you perform with your feet, often even without thinking about it?
Don’t just consider common actions such as walking or running but for example when you drive your car, when you practice your favorite sport and, perhaps, even in the workplace.
The position of the legs, and of the feet in particular, plays a central role in the work and driving stations, especially in cases where there are pedals or other controls to be operated with the feet.
While driving a train, for example, the driver operates the pedals to activate various functions, including the confirmation of “person presence and altertness” (dead man function), the operation of the sandboxes, of the horn and the adjustment of the footrest height.
As a center of competence for human-machine devices, we design and manufacture pedals according to the specific requirements of the customer, as well as use them integrated in our footrests and driver desks, always making available our expertise in Technology, Ergonomics and Style.
The main feature that identifies a pedal is the number and type of positions it must have.
For workstations subject to more severe working conditions, we offer products available in the catalogue but, at the same time, we are always looking for new solutions developed according to the customer’s needs. Products with IP protection, designed to withstand the access of water, dust and foreign bodies, are essential in these circumstances.
Our high-quality pedals offer high performance, reliability in any environment and durability and are present on driver desks all over the world from Europe to Australia, passing through Russia and America.
The output interface is customizable and configurable, via electrical connections, and / or communication protocols (Can Open, ethernet, Profinet etc). It is also possible to define the most suitable degree of safety, even with SIL certification.
Company processes at the service of productshttps://www.spii.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/regiolis-2-1.jpg1000600SpiiSpiihttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f3895a2bab0a50eb2964d87f4fe736a45f9970281e91c5f5ef564898ce8ab842?s=96&d=mm&r=g
Company processes are the way to achieve the best possible quality for products designing, manufacturing and validation. In this article we will focus on the quality process applied to validation, especially the activities from the customer needs to the completion of the product SIL assessment.
SIL stands for Safety Integrity Level and it is intended as a risk reduction upon a Safety Instrumented Function (SIF). These risk levels, linked to customer defined safety functions, are identified through risk matrixes and other mathematical calculations function on how the total safety is allocated upon the entire train system. SIL lever are going from Basic Integrity Level (the lowest, less safe) to SIL4 (the highest and safest). Achieving a certain SIL level means having a sufficient organization to guarantee existence and independence of the involved company functions. Moreover, a design, verification and validation process for both hardware and software able to manage requirement and to generate drawings, source codes, type tests and report is essential for this goal.
SPII is able to provide SIL products solutions for both hardware and software according to standards EN 50129 and EN 50657 and manage its own design process in quality according to standard ISO/TS 22163
Master controller functions such as dead-man device, operator presence control, analog and digital encoder outputs, even if developed with software assistance, can be SIL certified, fully embracing the fusion of technology, ergonomics and safety, at the basis of SPII working philosophy.
Let’s make safety a team goal!https://www.spii.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/SEZIONATORE-2-1.jpg1004602SpiiSpiihttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f3895a2bab0a50eb2964d87f4fe736a45f9970281e91c5f5ef564898ce8ab842?s=96&d=mm&r=g
Picture 1 – source: Verga Formazione – Electrical Risk Course
We speak more and more often about workplace safety referring to the set of measures and assessments that must be implemented to protect the health and integrity of workers from surrounding risks. Each company, therefore, cannot exempt itself from giving the subject the attention it deserves by leveraging on two dimensions: prevention and protection.
Whether it is a construction site, an office or your home, risk factors, accidents and injuries, occupational diseases must be eliminated or, at least, reduced and controlled. This is certainly also reflected in the productivity and development of the company itself. Certainly some types of work present greater dangers than others; for example, the maintenance of railway vehicles and exposure to high voltage electricity requires the presence of highly qualified and trained personnel in addition to the presence of safety devices, such as voltage detectors, earthing switches, insulation sticks.
The protection and safety of maintenance systems, on board trains or infrastructures, is therefore guaranteed by means of devices capable of ensuring maximum reliability for operators, even in the most severe environmental conditions (for example, in coastal or industrial areas or in presence of extreme temperatures …).
Interrupting the power supply and then grounding a high voltage circuit efficiently before performing maintenance is essential for the safety of personnel.
The human factor is fundamental and our goal is to allow the operator to act easily and without the possibility of error, in complete safety and serenity.
In this context, our manually operated earthing switch is a valuable ally in the daily work of thousands of maintenance workers. Ergonomics, ease of operation and certainty of the result are essential features for these safety devices. At SPII we design solutions that want to make life easier: easy to define, configure, install, use and maintain.
The modular and multipole disconnector is used for applications from 600V to 3KV DC. It is highly configurable according to the specific application: it can vary in the number of poles, in the switching sequence and in the operating mode (manual, electric, pneumatic).
Picture 4 – earthing switch, front view (operating lever and safety lock)
The safety of our devices can be further increased by integrating diagnostic modules for sending information, for example temperature, position or contact wear, to CBM systems or they can be equipped with safety devices such as locks, exchangers or key holders.
Picture 5 – knife switch (1)
Our traditional knife switch is also used for grounding the HV circuits downstream of the traction converter. The blades, in this configuration, are operated directly by the maintenance operator by means of an insulation stick. The range of application is very wide in terms of both voltage (from 600-750V DC to 3KV DC) and rated operating current. Also in this case, the solution is plug & play and can be supplied with an integrated box for all components, complete with wiring and pre-tested in the laboratory.
Our disconnectors are compact, flexible in use, reliable and require little maintenance.
Picture 6 – knife switch (2)
Technology, Safety and Ergonomics? These are the keywords.
