by Stephan Faris

Northeast Italy's industrial heartland stretches roughly from Milan to Venice, along the floodplains of the Po River all the way to the Adriatic. In the 1960s, farmers in the region began setting up small family-owned businesses, each specializing in just one small part of a finished product. Within a generation, many of these companies became world leaders in their respective fields, and small Italian cities thrived as manufacturing hubs.

The town of Montebelluna, north of Venice, once produced about three-quarters of the world's ski boots, with different companies specializing in buckles, plastic shells, and foam linings. About 70 percent of Europe's chairs were designed and manufactured by the 1,200 small outfits centered around Manzano, near Italy's eastern border with Slovenia—with each part of the production process handled by a different highly specialized company.

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Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/