Company – IRIS s.r.l.

WHO WE ARE

INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGICAL RESEARCH

IRIS is a strong innovative SME, based in the industrial area of Turin, specialized in the development of innovative technologies for the circular economy in small-scale industrial and civil institutions.

Founded in 2012 by 4 friends who decided to combine skills, experiences and ideas in a new business project to bring to the market solutions based on the application of laser and plasma technology that stood out for efficiency and competitiveness even on small-scale applications often neglected by the market despite the size of the demand.

THE FOUNDERS OF THE COMPANY

Manuel Lai

Engineer, graduated from the Polytechnic of Turin, dedicated his entire life to technological innovation: 18 years at the Fiat Research Center in the Manufacturing Innovation area before founding IRIS and continuing to develop new applications with passion. In over 25 years of work, it has developed a network of contacts and collaborations that gathers, throughout Europe, the most important institutions of the industrial research system. He is the owner, as inventor, of a lot of patents including the mini plasma treatment system with which IRIS was born.

Carlo Ferraro

Metalworking entrepreneur with passion for technology and computer science. In 2002 he acquired shares in a small engineering company founded as a spin-off of Prima Industrie. In 2008 he founded Laserlam, which in a recession context manages to grow and become a solid point of reference for efficient, flexible and industrial engineering production, also for very small lots, focusing on the skills of the staff and on stable investments in R&D.

Paolo Calefati

Currently holds the role of Innovation Vice President for the Prima Industrie Group and Vice President for business development of the Prima Additive division. He deals with technological innovation, strategic partnerships in the field of business development for additive manufacturing and for innovative technologies. He collaborates with European universities and research centers in the field of projects aimed at developing new technologies for industrial and production processes.

Massimiliano Bianchi

Lawyer at the Fubini Jorio Cavalli law firm in Turin, of which he has been a partner since 2014.

IRIS, in recent years, has developed a path of growth and development in two areas:

Process technology

IRIS develops industrial applications of laser and plasma technology, with a particular focus on welding and additive manufacturing processes.

Circular Economy

IRIS develops functional modules for the recovery of resources, water, energy, raw materials from matrices otherwise destined to be wastes. IRIS is specialized in small-scale treatment solutions, ideal for facilitating the launch of circular economy concepts in isolated places (rural areas, hamlets, refuges, boats, off-grid contexts) or in small communities that need to be self-sufficient (energetic communities, small municipalities, small urban districts).

MISSION AND VALUES

IRIS has in its DNA a constant search for innovation as a tool to develop high-tech technological processes.

OUR VISION

This approach guides every single action of the IRIS team and is the engine of the projects that develop year after year, both in the industrial sector and in environmental applications.

IRIS promotes a vision of technology at the service of environment and society, capable of interpreting and meeting contemporary challenges, in particular about issues of the transition to circular economy.

IRIS believes in participatory collaboration and encourages the creation of a continuous and constructive dialogue with the academic world, with a view to exchanging and sharing results, with the aim of bringing scientific research closer to the market.

INVESTING ON THE FUTURE

IRIS invests in new generations, supporting growth paths based on the development of skills and offering training opportunities, also at an international level.

IRIS supports a company culture in which socio-economic growth is coherent with a homogeneous development of resources and territory. There can be no sustainability if we do not put the well-being of individuals and the world around us at the centre of their actions.

Gender Equality Plan

KNOW HOW

Laser welding for any combination of materials: steel, light alloys, special alloys, thermoplastics, multi-material.

Additive manufacturing (DED technology) for metal matrix, laser coatings.

Surface treatment using atmospheric plasma technology.

Thermochemical conversion at high temperature.

Design of AOP plants for waste water recovery.

Small scales circular economy solutions for remote areas.

CAPABILITIES

INDUSTRIAL

Laser processing robotic cell with 5kW fiber laser and beam switch for the development of special welding, deposition and treatment applications (working area 2x2m).
Small1 robotic cell for pre-series and small laser welding, additive and surface plasma productions (working area 500x500x400m).
Additive manufacturing cabin, laser repairs, coatings and treatments with 3 kW fiber laser (working area 4 × 1,5x1m).
Laser welding station for plastic materials with 50W IR source (working area 0.5 × 0.5m).
“Plasma Cube” station for atmospheric surface plasma treatment with torch reactors and parallel plate electrodes (30×30 cm).
TIG / MIG / MAG welding.
GTV metal powder dispenser, sieve for powder recovery.
Station for metallographs.

ENVIRONMENTAL

Laboratory for the development of thermochemical conversion processes (10kW).
Laboratory for the development of treatment processes using plasma and electrical pulses (120kV).
Chemical and microbiological laboratory.
Two stations for gas treatment using cold plasma technology.

ISO 9001:2015

UNI EN ISO 3834-2:2006

INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT

EXPERTS IN LASER AND PLASMA TECHNOLOGY

IRIS is part of a group of high-tech manufacturing SMEs headed by Laserlam, which has created a center specialized in laser, plasma, sheet metal processing, additives (both powder bed and DED) and 3D printing technologies.

Thanks to the sharing of know-how and skills within the group, IRIS is able to build technological demonstrator prototypes and test new processes/equipment in an industrial environment. The results of the process tests can be quickly sent to production, relying on the robust organizational and production structure of Laserlam, or to industrialization through the construction from scratch of the most suitable plant solution. Since October 2020, IRIS is Prima Open Additive Lab.

In the environmental field, IRIS supports and count on the collaboration of Walden, a technological start-up, born in 2019, active in the field of sustainable management/use of natural resources, the supply of forest products and the offer of renewable energy services and on Ambornetti, an entity created to start the recovery of an abandoned village through the creation of an eco-sustainable resort that will use the innovative technologies patented by IRIS.