The lockdown proved to be a constructive opportunity to get to grips with the digital challenge. An incentive to imagine the future of spaces by focusing on design and technology and involving the most important players on topics covering the workplace, education, hospitality, retail and public spaces. The result was an intellectual guideline capable of mapping out a new narrative in the sector, as well as overcoming obsolete models by taking advantage of the potential of current technology.
  
OPEN INNOVATION TO CREATE ECOSYSTEM INNOVATION
In recent years, many companies have focused their strategic choices on open innovation, undergoing a profound transformation internally and in their relations with the outside world. Open innovation is a strategic and cultural approach based on which companies choose to rely on an innovation model in order to create more value and be more competitive on the market, one that does not only take into account internal ideas and resources, but also tools and skills sourced externally, especially from start-ups, universities, research institutes, consultants and non-competing companies.
  
Companies have realised that they need to develop a more distributed, hands-on and decentralised approach to innovation. Indeed, open innovation may prove to be the most profitable way to innovate, as it reduces costs and increases market differentiation by creating new business solutions and accelerating time to market.
  
INVESTING IN SMART MANUFACTURING
Smart manufacturing means revolutionising the production times and methods, introducing technologies and strategies that fall under the broader framework of Industry 4.0, into the factory. The goal is to optimize Products, Processes and People, the so-called 3Ps. To do this, we need to change our perspective, by taking advantage of the digital world to work on new levels of integration and relationship, while maintaining customer centricity.
  
The key words in smart production: flexibility, sharing and collaboration.
  
Arrital, which has a logistics and production plant occupying 58,000 square meters and a network of over 200 partners, continued to invest even during the pandemic, allocating approximately 5 million Euros to the modernisation and alignment of production facilities with the purchase of new machinery. “In the 2021-2023 three-year business plan,” explains the General Manager Christian Dal Bo, “we identified thirty-three improvement processesthat willaffect both the production part and the offices. The first stages will involve the mapping of business processes to identify and resolve our weaknesses: from the requalification of the procurement office to IT support. We are creating an ‘operations’ manager with a ‘supply chain’ that will allow us to monitor every single stage of the production cycle”.