Cecimo, the European association of the machine tool industries, has recently co-organized a roundtable at the European Parliament with the European Forum for Manufacturing to explore the current challenges of advanced manufacturers of the continent. Filip Geerts, Director General of Cecimo, pointed out how this meeting was an exclusive occasion to bring together industrialists in technologies such as additive manufacturing, representatives from the European institutions and regional authorities. The event has shown that regional, national and European policy-makers need to bring coherence in their policies relating to advanced manufacturing. The rise of new production technologies like additive manufacturing is bringing to the front emerging industries that can breathe new life into Europe’s industrial base. If Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) are to drive industrial modernization in the continent, policy-makers at all levels must share a common vision that prioritizes innovation-based sectors. Additive manufacturing was widely recognised as one of these. Specific missing links in the market can be swiftly identified only by bringing all relevant actors together. Regional authorities, on one side, are well-placed to contribute from the bottom up to deepen and multiply the application markets of KETs like additive manufacturing. EU institutions, on the other side, possess the capabilities to push the development of the value chain top-down. As Cecimo’s President Luigi Galdabini stated, they can provide funding and channel investments into new production systems, whose adoption would be beneficial for the whole industrial base, especially in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Beyond setting up the right regulatory framework and providing public funding for innovation, the uptake of KETs like additive manufacturing will also be enabled by a shift in people’s attitude towards them. Authorities will need to better emphasize the advantages of these technologies to deal with market, societal and environmental challenges. For this to happen, industrial actors must be educated on the benefits it brings to their business. Several participants at the event highlighted, among other things, how services and labs to test technology are particularly useful for SMEs, since they lack the sufficient resources to test technology on their own.
Finally, forward-looking education and training programmes need to be regarded as a top priority: European policy-makers can contribute meaningfully by communicating to different education and training providers the importance of shaping curricula aligned with the evolving reality of manufacturing.
