Jérôme Frantz, President of the Fédération des Industries Mécaniques (FIM), and Alain Rousset, President of the Association des Régions de France (ARF), signed a cooperation agreement on March 31 to consolidate the Usine du Futur project and roll it out in the regions. " We are delighted to have signed this agreement with the ARF, which has a dual objective: to boost the visibility of the mechanical engineering industry's offering, which cuts across all industrial sectors, and to provide support to the Regions in implementing the "Factory of the Future" project. "explains Jérôme Frantz. This Usine du Futur project, for which FIM is one of the national pilots, is being carried out in close collaboration with key partners such as Cetim and Symop. " For the entire fabric of SMEs, the Factory of the Future plan represents a formidable vector for competitiveness, improved working conditions and the energy transition. But to achieve this, we need to work closely with companies, and the Region-SME partnership is essential.says Alain Rousset. We're very pleased to be working more closely with FIM and its partners, to accelerate and consolidate the deployment of our regional Factory of the Future programs. "
To consolidate the project, FIM has drawn up a reference document entitled "Usine du Futur 2020", available in June 2015. A genuine operational support tool for company managers and Regions, this document defines the basics of the concept for the mechanical engineering industries and describes the major challenges in terms of market evolution, productivity and competitiveness, technologies, organization, environment, working conditions, skills and societal aspects. This initial support will be supplemented by thematic sheets describing the various components of the Factory of the Future. Resolutely practical, these sheets will be geared towards implementation in companies (including SMEs and even VSEs). As part of this cooperation, FIM and ARF have defined several areas of work, including the sharing and promotion of the FIM repository in the regions. The parties involved are also responsible for identifying the success stories of exemplary mechanical engineering companies, in order to encourage SMEs to commit to modernizing their production facilities on the one hand, and to feed into national work on the production tools of the future on the other. " This action is essentialsays Jean-Camille Uring, Symop Chairman, both to catch up with our companies in terms of investment and to ensure that they are part of tomorrow's industrial performance, a prerequisite for tackling all markets. ". Consideration is being given to support for collective projects, and to the possibility of labeling or creating a "Factory of the Future" brand. Valorization offered to innovative, profitable-growth and export-oriented companies. To encourage international development, Regional Councils and Mechanical Engineering Committees are setting up a monitoring system to help mechanical engineering companies respond to international competition. In addition, they offer companies an assessment of their product development projects.
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