The aim of the seminars is to transfer knowledge to the private sector which is of interest to a particular industry to enable actions and implementations to be undertaken to improve competitiveness. AITEX works closely with companies and specialist consultants in each of the subjects.
The first business seminar was dedicated to the subject of Industry 4.0. “Strategies and management applications as a base for digital transformation”. Digitalisation is a key opportunity to improve the competitiveness of the textile industry in a marketplace which is becoming increasingly global. The seminar was backed up by the collective experience of important and well-known speakers such as Isabel Aguilera, a consultant on strategy, innovation and operations and President of Google Iberia (2006-2008), Sergio Gordillo, Managing Partner at Improven, Diego Saez, Managing Partner at Mesbook and Ricardo Espinosa of Nunsys.
The presentation by Isabel Aguilera Digitalistion in the SME, a chance to regain competitiveness underlined the fact that technology is advancing at a break-neck pace, placing companies in a difficult situation of instability in which, as she says, “adapting means arriving late”. In the context of this transformation we must be leaders and take the first step in order to reach our clients in different, more exciting ways. That is the only way we will be able to gain a fleeting competitive advantage over our competitors.
In these times of permanent change, success is ever more difficult to maintain and many companies are missing the boat. Sergio Gordillo highlighted the importance of redefining our strategies and coming up with new business models to fit in with the new digital environment: as he said “Companies must identify where they are different from the rest. That is where their excellence lies, that and through cooperation and by bringing in new talent to their teams”.
Diego Saez presented clear solutions to real problems that manufacturers find themselves facing every day: mountains of paperwork, loose Excel spreadsheets, programmes which don’t speak to each other, etc. All this data must be transformed into information and this information into knowledge, before decisions can be made. MES systems allow a factory to be managed in real time, unifying systems and providing objective information to enable cost reductions to be implemented.
In answer to the frequent question: where do I start digitalising my company? Ricardo Espinosa from Nunsys suggests performing an Industry 4.0 diagnosis to identify the current state of the company and what steps it should be taking towards becoming a smart factory. Ricardo spoke of the different layers of IT systems including ERP, CRM and BI software which together form the basis of Industry 4.0.
