Awareness is growing among Italian SMEs that technological transformation and digitization of production processes are a priority in order not to lose competitive ground in global markets. This is in summary what emerges from the research presented by theDigital Innovation Observatory in SMEs of the Politecnico di Milano at the opening conference of the 17th edition of the International Fair A&T - Automation & Testing, scheduled to take place at the Oval Lingotto in Turin from Feb. 22 to 24.
According to data announced during the event entitled Italian SMEs, between innovation, digitalization and territorial interconnection. What to do to grow? awareness has grown among Italian SMEs that digitizing, innovating their processes is now a priority. Fewer than half of SMEs, in fact, still consider digitization to be marginal compared to their sectors or with costs still too high compared to the benefits.
It is the Northwest that is providing a major driving force with respect to the country's technological development: 62 percent of small companies, in fact, believe and invest in digital, showing sensitivity to IIoT - Industrial Internet of Things - and training. Therefore, the innovation game is no longer played only on technological transformation, but on upskilling and reskilling of human capital. In fact, according to the research, 89 percent of companies geographically located in Italy's Northwest have initiated training activities in the past two years to implement the digital skills of their employees, although it should be noted that these are often training events undertaken extemporaneously (workshops, webinars). The real challenge today is to systematize and connect all the production phases, implementing data collection and analysis, which are fundamental from the perspective of predictive maintenance and process interoperability.
"The research highlighted how crucial it is today - looking at not only short-, but especially medium- and long-term competitiveness - to intelligently apply new technologies. Intelligence we have become accustomed to associating it, especially in the context of advanced industry, with the term artificial, thus charting a course increasingly directed toward the metaverse. As the data announced this morning indicate, companies-especially our SMEs-have shown that they believe in innovation, that they are pursuing a new growth trend characterized by digitization, not only of machines, but also of thinking. The present and future of this historical era, now cleared as the fifth industrial revolution, can only be shaped as the application of humanistic technology, where human-machine cooperation remains central. But this is not enough: we need to operate in a mode that is no longer individual but systemic. Industrial competitiveness will increasingly be characterized by a strong connection between industrial districts and territorial districts, where it will be crucial to team up, to be a team. This is at the local, national and European levels. We as A&T continue to believe that Italian industry needs to grow by aggregating, by pooling skills, technologies, experience and relationships. This is why we wanted to invest by opening ourselves, through A&T Vicenza scheduled for Oct. 25-27, to the territory of the Northeast, an area of excellence of industrial supply chains not present in Piedmont. The connection and contamination of different supply chains in different territories can only generate added value for both the Northwest and the Northeast, which are distinguished at the industrial level by supply chains that are highly competitive at the global level. It is very important to work as a system in order to be efficient and effective; this applies as much to companies as to territories, which need to be increasingly interconnected by sharing experiences and skills, which are fundamental for growing our country's competitiveness," said A&T CEO Luciano Malgaroli.
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