Our History

Established in 1968 by a handful of ground breaking pioneers in the precision engineering world, A.L.T.A Spa has been around for over 50 years at the top of the hydraulic cylinder tubes market, widely gaining the title of reliable and highly innovative Company.

In 1967 ALTA’s forerunner “Fluidotecnica” started to produce and distribute on to the Italian market a highly innovative cylinder tube, which deeply affected the oleo-dynamic cylinder design and manufacture over the following years, thus improving functions and optimizing costs. This peculiar innovation was to use stress relieved cold drawn tubes rather than normalized hot rolled. Steel mechanical properties were drastically improved and as a consequence thinner wall, lighter weights and further cost reductions were all fundamental in allowing Italian manufacture’s to conquer increasing shares in the most modern markets.

Derived from the first “Fulmer honing machine” (built in 1934) which arrived in Italy as a “gift from the USA” and through the European Recovery Plan (“ERP” – in formally “The Marshall Plan) after 1945. ALTA was able to obtain the maximum reachable level of success through the combination of applied smartness and the experience gained through the freshest and most demanding needs of the period.

So in the 1970s ALTA decided to purchase and revamp old military machines, transforming them, following the highest principals of new growing Italian industry. This allowed ALTA to apply its highly developed production technology from two “Bencini” machines which were obtained from “OTO Melara” a naval gun barrel production facility in La Spezia and two “Borsig” machines recovered from the naval arsenal in Pozzuoli (NA).

At the beginning of the 80s ALTA was the first to test roller-burnishing instead of honing, a procedure originally meant for other aims. Competitors of ALTA tried to follow the same procedure but their tools manufactured in a different way from ALTA technology did not allow them to reach the excellence of roughness on the tube’s inside surface.

As the leader of Innovation, the first ever in this market, ALTA was certified ISO 9000 in 1992. Providing the evidence of even higher quality standards and a top reference for International cylinder manufacturers.

From the formation in 1968 the company has grown constantly in the European market, touching American and Oceanian markets, with export’s being over 75% of its turnover.