The mold Industry is on the critical path of global product development and therefore, is a strategic infrastructure for Portugal, allowing the industrialization of any global product, inducing foreign investment, growth and employment.
The Portuguese mold industry is now ranked in the eight largest exporters in the world, it is the 10th largest tooling producer, and presents itself as one of the most dynamic national sectors in the acquisition and endogenization of new technologies. In fact, in order to create differentiation among customers, it is not only necessary to acquire the technology, but also to assimilate it, dominate it and put it at the service of developing new tooling solutions.
However, Tooling companies face significant margin losses. The reason for this is the increased competition, especially from Eastern Europe, as well as Central and South Asia. The quality of the tools in these regions has increased strongly and their prices, although growing, are still relatively low.
Main objective:
To strengthen research, technological development and innovation.
The TOOLING 4G project fits into CLUSTER ENGINEERING & TOOLING, which integrates an extended value chain (from design to final product) to answer to global customers, that looking for key-in-hand solutions. Portugal intends with this mobilizing project, to reinforce its value chain, integrating itself as part of the supply chains of global products (automobile, medical devices, aeronautics, packaging, electronics, etc).
This project represents a collective dynamic and strategic for Portugal, by adding companies and entities of the scientific and technological system, around of an Industry and strategic Cluster, seeking to anticipate and accelerate capacity, knowledge and a new offer in the international market, as an innovative answer to the challenges of INDUSTRY 4.0, INDUSTRY SCANNING, and in particular, the " Zero Defects Manufacture ".
It is in this sense that the national Tooling industry must be able to create differentiation by approaching systematically and continuously of the five dimensions (not necessarily independent) of the Tooling value:
• Costs
• Time-to-Market
• Quality
• Innovation
• Productivity
In update