Catalonia is a country with a long industrial tradition, made up of an important fabric of SMEs and large companies, indigenous and multinational. This industrial tradition, which over the decades has materialized with an important contribution to the GDP and leading the job generation rankings, saw it lose strength at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one, as a result of the process of offshoring arose as a result of globalization and the growth of manufactured products in countries with low labor costs and few environmental protection rules.
Over the last few years it has become evident that the paradigm of Asia as the world's factory was beginning to falter, the energy costs in terms of transport, the factors associated with product customization, proximity services, the dangers of covid, the change in culture from using and throwing to the culture of conserving and reusing explain the need to develop policies aimed at promoting reindustrialization with sustainability criteria in a global competition framework and generating quality employment. Requirements that will only become possible with a strong, innovative and productive industrial sector that assumes the criteria of Industry 4.0.
Industry 4.0, intelligent factories and products leads to an increase in the competitiveness of the economy based on five components: Innovation, technology, talent, sustainability and inclusive growth.
The challenge of Industry 4.0 can be assumed by Catalonia given that Catalan industry and manufacturing are highly competitive at an international level, as shown by the amounts of exports. To make it possible, involves considering manufacturing as a key sector for economic competitiveness and job creation considering three objectives: the first, making it possible to turn scientific progress into social progress by enhancing the transfer of knowledge and the symbioses between the world of science and the productive world. The second is to facilitate the emergence of new initiatives in areas of emerging knowledge and to facilitate their interrelationship with established companies with proven productive capacity. The third, articulating an administration close to the company, familiar with its problems and challenges with the ability to listen to proposals and turn them into action programs considering the reality of the Catalan productive fabric and the entirety of the Catalan territory
Achieving this challenge in the context described entails the development of an innovative industrial policy that contemplates digital transformation, strengthening the capitalization of companies and bringing research and the University closer to companies and in promotion policies to mergers and alliances between companies to reach the required volume.
Abstract Catalonia is a country with a long industrial tradition, made up of an important fabric of SMEs and large companies, indigenous and multinational. This industrial tradition, [...]
INDUSTRY 4.0 and SOCIOECONOMIC PROGRESS 
