Third birthday of MetaIndustry4

Submitted by Silvia Jiménez… on 09 August 2019

3 years have elapsed since the constitution of the Advanced Manufacturing Cluster of the Metal Industry in Asturias

On July 25, 2016, 32 companies and organizations signed the act of constitution of the Advanced Manufacturing Cluster of the Metal Industry of Asturias. Now three years have passed, and MetaIndustry4 has 61 partners, continuing its expansion and growth process, while consolidating its regional presence and advancing its development at national and European level.

The Cluster of Advanced Manufacturing of the Metal Industry of Asturias was born promoted by the Federation of Metal and Related Businessmen of the Principality of Asturias, FEMETAL, where numerous companies in the industry, along with others from the technological field, as well as public organizations and privates gathered around a table to design a cluster, which far from becoming a sector organization, would house the entire ecosystem of the metal industry in Asturias.

After these three years, MetaIndustry4 has been committed to its mission: “Promote the competitive improvement of the Asturian metal industry and its sectorial ecosystem, facilitating its integration into the main Global Value Chains, improving human and technological resources and betting on the innovation and cooperation, with a clear orientation towards accelerating the pace of growth in both turnover and profitability. “

Throughout this time, the Cluster has been deploying its strategy around three main axes: integration into global value chains, collaborative innovation and technological improvement and the development of human capital.

Around the integration in global value chains, MetaIndustry4 has worked on the development of an offer of global solutions by value chain, which currently offers global solutions in the field of renewable energypetrochemical industry, the field of steel industry and power generation. This work of development of integral solutions by Value Chain has been recognized through the National Award for the best collaborative project between companies awarded by the National Federation of Innovative Business Groups and Clusters.

In the field of technological improvement and collaborative innovation, Metaindustry4 focuses on actions aimed at facilitating greater and better integration of technological advances and innovation in the partner companies of the Cluster. Starting from the base of the level of digital transformation of the Industry, MetaIndustry4 offers its partners a support service to the digital transformation, also tries to boost the generation of collaborative projects of technological innovation and create international contacts to forge opportunities for collaboration in countryside. In this third year, five Cluster member companies have been working on the design and development of an advanced data analysis software prototype, based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, aimed at facilitating production planning in companies industrial of the metal, through a collaborative project financed by the Ministry of Industry Commerce and Tourism, through the Support Program for Innovative Business Groups 2018.

The general lines of action in relation to Human Capital Management focus on everything related to the recommended actions to facilitate better training and management of the present and future human capital of the Cluster partners. In this area, benchmarking and study of good business practices, exchange of good HR practices and the achievement of a first European project for MetaIndustry4 stand out. This is the AttTraK project. Employer empowerment to attract, transfer and keep young people in metal industries, a project funded by the Erasmus+program, which aims to develop and strengthen the skills of managers, managers and human resources managers of companies in the metal sector for the Recruitment and staff development. Empowering companies to recruit young people, make them fit for the labor market in the metal industries and prepare them for the challenges of the future.

Three intense years, full of activity, in which this brief summary is just a sample to which other notable milestones are added, such as the recognition as Cluster Management Excellence Bronze Label granted by the European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis (ESCA). This recognition guarantees the commitment, effort and interest of MetaIndustry4 to achieve excellence in its management and allows it to acquire a better positioning within international networks.

MetaIndustry4, with the involvement of its Partners, continues to grow and look towards the future from the cooperation, internationalization, innovation and digitalization of the organizations that form the Cluster.

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