A third key element that characterises the metallurgical and mechanical District of Lecco is the constant and intense application of research to materials, oriented in the direction of achieving significant product innovation and increasing the added value of the offering to the clientele.

This is an undertaking that, in different ways, involves the companies that operate in the district on a daily basis. Research is not carried out exclusively on the initiative of the more sensitive companies, however, but is co-ordinated by specific technical and scientific structures that are an integral part of the connective tissue of the District of Lecco. Particularly important is the activity of SITEC Lecco, the laboratory created by a Lecco Engineering Faculty initiative with the support of the Mechanical and Production Technologies section of the Milan Polytechnic Mechanical Engineering Department, which provides companies with a service that ranges from preliminary tests up to the setting up of the laser process within the company for welding, cutting/drilling, surface hardening, marking and cleaning processes. SITEC performs processing tests, carries out research work for setting up laser processes for a particular component and develops common technological innovation projects with companies.

Research into materials is therefore perfectly in line with the basic philosophy that qualifies and distinguishes the metallurgical and mechanical District of Lecco: to be a process and not a product district, to cover an almost infinite range of intermediate solutions and components, to offer a very wide range of products obtained through processes of transformation of different metals that intersect with one another in many stages.