SPEA : The Test of Quality
SPEA conceives, invents, designs and develops industry-leading test equipment for electronics worldwide. Founder and CEO Luciano Bonaria explores the spirit of ingenuity and aspirations for growth.
SPEA
Standing the Test of Time The story of Luciano Bonaria and his company SPEA – set up in the 1970s, today it stands proud as a go-to partner for vital electronic equipment testing Writer: Tom Wadlow | Project Manager: Matthew Taylor There are literally billions and billions of devices that require electricity to run. From smartphones and vehicle components to home applicances and military equipment, we rely on electronic goods every hour of every day. Since 2013, annual global electricity consumption has surpassed 20,000 terawatt-hours, more than double the yearly usage recorded at the end of the 1980s. Be it growing populations or human innovation, there are many factors which explain the exponential rise in power consumption and the number of electronic products produced and used around the world – and one consequence of this is that the need for reliable, rapid and abundant equipment testing has never been more important. Luciano Bonaria knew this when he set up SPEA in Torino, Italy, in 1976. Today the firm stands as a leading producer of automatic test equipment (ATE) with clients all over the world from a raft of industries, including automotive, consumer, industrial, health and military, to name but a few. Bonaria still serves proudly as CEO, a venture which even he admits was not on the agenda when he was working for GE’s mainframe computer division as a test and design engineer in the early 1970s. “Back then in my 20s I was happily employed,” he recalls. “I conceived and developed very complex ATE for the mainframe computer boards, including a highly sophisticated and…
