Lumen Fortronic Forum in Italy – Interview with Franco Musiari

LED professional: What is the background of the Lumen Fortronic Forums, in general?

Mr. Musiari: The fifth Lumen Fortronic Forum has confirmed the success that we have always seen at this type of event. The starting point was the message coming from Assodel (Association of suppliers of electronic components) members that first recognized the start of a new era in lighting.  They were asking to promote technology towards the people that see “light” as a design tool.

Another event was an additional trigger: In 2009 the production of electronic systems suffered a deep crisis and this was an incentive to many SMEs to start looking in new directions; one of them was SSL. At this point Silvio Baronchelli – President of Assodel – saw this as a new development opportunity based on a few key considerations: Italy has an abundance of SMEs capable of tailoring needed solutions and are, by nature, design oriented.

The first events were mainly focused on technology, our deepest knowledge, and the base target was the electronic designer’s community, our widest database. But we realized that to diffuse the SSL culture we needed to widen our reach toward the lighting and lighting designer’s community.

To reach this target Mr. Baronchelli has addressed the associations that were created with traditional lighting technology, like AIDI (Associazione Italiana di Illuminazione) that became a partner, and experts from the lighting designers world who came from Universities, design centers, and light and illumination laboratories.

Meanwhile, our horizon has widened and we have entered the “Illuminotronica” era.  We have moved from the more technology focused, one day, Lumen Forum to the coming three day “Illuminotronica” event.  The “Illuminotronica” has a much wider view: a place where the full supply chain of SSL – from devices to end market, from manufacturers to lighting designers –find a place to meet and take a close look at this new way of doing light.

LED professional: Which new trends were identified in terms of technology and business?

Mr. Musiari: In a few words, when speaking to some of the attendees at the Forum, it looks like the very new key trend is “differentiation through smart lighting”. What’s that?  The original key word for SSL was “energy saving”.  This was used because of the efficiency of the light source – the LED. Now, savings are becoming smarter and taking advantage of the electronic nature of the LED drivers. The light source can adapt to the environmental conditions – like, for example, occupancy, which affects the level of required illumination. What electronics can offer is also easy integration of the SSL into lighting management systems.  This will probably expand the addressable market. The next step will lead the light sources to become connected with the internet. These trends will be the base for differentiation, competitive advantage and leverage.

LED professional: Based on this situation, what is important for the Italian lighting market?

Mr. Musiari: Italy is already known for having a tradition in lighting design. We are competing with Germany for first position on the illumination market – whereby Germany is more oriented on the industrial sector.  I do believe that LED technology has added new capabilities. Design and culture will be sustained by the SMEs who have a thorough background in the electronic manufacturing sector and have now entered this market.

LED professional: Thank you very much!

Mr. Musiari: Thank you.

About Franco Musiari
Franco Musiari has been the Technical Director of Tecnoimprese magazines and events since 2003. After getting his MS in Electronics at “Politecnico di Milano” he started his career as a designer in a multi-national company.  He then continued gaining experience at a top Japanese semiconductor manufacturer, at various levels of responsibility - first locally and then at a European level.