In a secret location in Piacenza, northern Italy, a team of engineers is working on a new machine that Andrea Riello believes could help his business fly high above the turbulence of an economic downturn.

Project Rumble, as Mr Riello has christened the €5m ($7.8m) programme, is aimed at finding a much faster way to machine big titanium structures of the kind becoming increasingly important in aerospace, and especially to Boeing of the US and Airbus of Europe.