How to access our services for Transizione 4.0

After the brief summer break, our spaces have reopened to the public and the new season has begun in a truly disruptive way.

After the forced lockdown of most production activities, especially in the industrial sector, the desire to restart and the intention to make up for lost time are clearly perceived — but with the awareness that the market has profoundly changed and that, beyond some unknowns, the future will mostly hold great opportunities.

The imminent arrival of liquidity foreseen by European and national intervention plans represents, for every company, regardless of its size and focus, the occasion to launch renewal and innovation programmes for processes and products.

The Italian Ministry of Economic Development has already named this programme Transizione 4.0 to underline the commitment towards the transformation of the economic and productive system, following the guidelines of the Industry 4.0 model, and accelerating the competitive repositioning processes that had been laboriously started in the pre-COVID period.

Our hub constitutes a privileged observation point, and the impression we had as early as the end of August is that market movement is much more dynamic and very different from the lazy and cautious trend that characterised 2019.

Attention and interest towards topics such as digitalisation, additive manufacturing, supply chain transformation and eco-sustainability of production processes — to give just a few examples — have suddenly increased, and above all concern specific needs and short-term projects, on the part of the companies contacting us.

It is a phenomenon we had foreseen, and during the hardest months of lockdown we took advantage of the suspension of public-facing activities to accelerate and complete the project of strengthening our business services platform.

The resumption of activities therefore did not catch us unprepared, and the companies that have approached us in recent weeks have found an immediate response to their needs but also to their concerns, especially since in our laboratories all the smart technologies that make up the Industry 4.0 model are present and visible.

But what exactly does what we have called the services platform supporting Transizione 4.0 consist of, and above all, how can it be accessed?

First of all, it is appropriate to start by identifying the target audience of our offering, which is mainly businesses, artisans, artists and professionals, to whom we propose a portfolio of products and services that is articulated and personalised according to the size and peculiar characteristics of each subject.

For the private public, our offering is limited to the catalogue training courses, which are scheduled and repeated throughout the entire academic year in three editions.

Access to and visits of the laboratories by the public engaged in amateur activities is allowed only during periodically scheduled events and open days.

The FabLabs are the cornerstone of our platform. They are laboratories strategically located in the urban territory and equipped according to the guidelines of the Fab Foundation and M.I.T. Boston, capable of supporting the development of industrial products according to precise manufacturing standards.

Each FabLab addresses our clients with two different types of offering:

• atelier and process gallery where it is possible to see in action and experiment with all the smart technologies of the Industry 4.0 model;
• laboratory and workshop that can be used for one’s own research and development activity on a pay-per-use logic.

The FabLab as a Process Gallery

Our experience as producers and curators in the world of Contemporary Art has been put to use with the creation of Spazio Chirale, a FabLab in which we put our model of Process Gallery into practice for the first time.

Whereas a conventional art gallery exhibits and connects with the public the work — i.e. the final product — of an artist, our FabLabs exhibit and allow the public to interact with the design and production process of a product in an innovative way.

The concept of process is particularly important for us. Products and services, from a work of art to a smartphone, are the result of an articulated set of phases and activities that involve transformations of materials, technologies, tools, machines and human interventions. Processes, in fact.

In our laboratories, clients and potential clients can analyse and experiment with all the new technologies inserted and contextualised in a production environment.

The most significant experiences gained in research-and-development activities and in consulting our most successful clients are constantly collected, classified and displayed in our FabLabs, where they can be analysed as use-case examples and related to one’s own objectives.

Each FabLab represents an important source of inspiration and a ground for comparison and verification of one’s own intentions and ideas regarding innovation.

Following the strengthening of our network, the two main FabLabs have been reorganised and specialised in order to ensure a better distribution of access for our clients.

The FabLab Spazio Chirale alla Garbatella is currently focused on the processes of Interactive and Visual Art and on immaterial products.

The FabLab Ostiense is equipped with production machines and focused on the processes of digital fabrication and the smart factory model.

Both spaces host training courses, both during the day and in the evening.

The FabLab as an R&D facility

Our FabLabs are equipped with machines and tools that have the capacity to support the production of final prototypes and in some cases of pre-production runs.

Where the in-house acquisition of new technologies is not justifiable or sustainable in the light of one’s company size or the risk associated with the launch of a new product, the FabLab represents a valid alternative and provides the opportunity to use the equipment by bearing only the costs of actual usage.

The FabLab does not perform service activities, does not accept third-party processing, but provides the machines that can be booked and used by the client company and its personnel.

The methods of accessing this type of service are flexible and suitable for all kinds of organisations, ranging from the simple online booking of a specific machine to the definition of packages including consulting, training and the provision of our laboratories, in order to support the most complex projects and the most structured organisations.

Management consulting and turnkey projects

In addition to the services related to access to our FabLabs, our offering includes strategic and management consulting programmes for the renewal or innovation of business processes, customised plans and training programmes to be carried out on-site at the Client, development of turnkey projects in both hardware and software.

Are you ready for Transizione 4.0?

Do you have great ideas or projects to develop together? Contact us.