Home & Office
Águeda Business Association in partnership with Oliveira de Azeméis Municipality Business Association, has a project called “Qualification & Competition - Qualification for the Competitiveness of the Home & Office Industry”, approved in Portugal 2020 and specifically of the Support for Collective Actions (SIAC) - Qualification, as part of thematic objective 3 - “Strengthening the Competitiveness of Small and Medium Enterprises” of the Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Program, supported by the European Fund for Regional Development (FEDER).
This project aims to encourage the smart specialization of production systems and regional economies and also the qualification of the HOME & OFFICE row of the North and Center regions of the country.
In the sector of HOME & OFFICE, several companies from these Regions are claiming innovation and global competition. It is due to the dynamism and work capacity of its people that these regions have been standing out in the industrial scenery, having already several companies with national and international awards, placing several products in markets so demanding and with such heterogeneous characteristics, embodying an increasingly strong industry.
The excellence of national companies is reflected in the quality of their products, the innovation of materials and the Portuguese design revolution. Technological and human investment, sustainable, efficient and dedicated, lead to permanent and intelligent solutions.
Even in other areas, such as social responsibility, companies are becoming prominent through the development of conscious solutions that promote a sustainable future.
This projet is, thus, dedicated to this determining part of the Portuguese industry, namely in the Furniture, Lighting, Ceramics, Metalworking and Hardware sectors, in the Industry in his essence, which has come to the present day through the wisdom of the various generations that have been refining techniques and updating their knowledge of new materials that allowed us to reach the future today.
• Promotion and intensification of innovative practices of enterprises based on network co-innovation;
• Creation of an online platform for cooperation on innovation;
• Creation of an Observatory for the development and sustainability of the business fabric of HOME & OFFICE;
• Promotion of access to international decision-makers and players guiding the critical factors of future competitiveness;
• Construction of cases demonstrating technological appropriation (industry 4.0), new materials, quality processes and innovation in the HOME & OFFICE and processes and models of co-innovation achieved;
• Dissemination of the results obtained.
The activities were defined in an integrated and complementary perspective, having an intrinsic logic and instrumentality, but a coherence and an overall integrity.
Main Activities:
• Studies of survey of innovation competences (technologies, products and processes) Inter and Intra Row:
- Study of diagnosis in the sector - Lighting
- Diagnostic study in the sector - Metalomechanics and Hardware
- Diagnostic study in the sector - Ceramics
- Diagnostic study in the sector - Furniture
• Clustering of the region's innovative core competencies and FCS for innovation.
• Forecasting of central areas of innovation - Strategic alignment of the regional FCS with the reality prospected by external demand.
This activity aims to appropriate and disseminate knowledge about the central areas of innovation defined by the decision centers and knowledge of external demand for the future, creating lines of action and priorities for strategic and operational alignment between the regional competencies of the sector and the FCS and differentiation forecasted for 5 years.
• Multi-row cooperation and coopetition platform for the development of multidisciplinary approaches to the development of new products.
This activity intends to be the inauguration of a co-innovation and network cooperation praxis, between the companies of the Northern and Central regions, through the use of ICT tools, creating spaces and nuclei of advanced innovation.
• Observatory of the development and sustainability of the business fabric.
This activity aims to materialize the obtaining, production and free dissemination of economic information on sectors, product/service positioning and markets, which allows the development and sustainability of the business fabric of the Home&Office.
• Dissemination sessions (seminars) with decision makers from external target sectors in order to give Home&Office companies access to International Players oriented to the critical factors of future competitiveness and awareness of areas in innovation that are central to the sector.
• Prospective Workshops: Example Cases and Lessons Learn of technological appropriation (Industry 4.0), new materials, quality processes and innovation in the Home&Office and processes and models of co innovation achieved with the project.
• Instill new forms of Competitiveness and Strategic Alignment with external demand, through qualification and appropriation of advanced technologies;
• Provide information and knowledge;
• Promote networking and co-innovation practices for the development of new products and innovative practices;
• Increase the international attractiveness of the HOME & OFFICE sector;
• Inclusion of Micro and SME's in the digital era through access and use of online innovation platform and observatory of HOME & OFFICE;
• Awareness and dissemination of critical factors of competitiveness in the sectors that make up the HOME & OFFICE;
• Create leverage and multiplier effects in adjacent rows and other rows by adopting the same methodologies and using the results of information.
