5 members of AEI Téxtils presented in the CLAMTEX Virtual Marketplace with over 180 participants

More than 180 participants registered to the CLAMTEX Virtual Marketplace: Towards industry 4.0 in the textile industry organized between January 20th and February 24th with a total of 6 webinars and 6 matchmaking sessions.

 The event was organized by the European Cluster Strategic Partnership for Excellence, CLAMTEX - Cluster management towards excellence in Advanced Manufacturing and Textile Industry, led by the cluster on advanced textile materials in Catalonia, AEI TÈXTILS.

The cluster and its members had an active role participating in the virtual marketplace with a total of 5 members presenting in the webinars, the SMEs FINSA, E.CIMA, LIASA, CINPASA and the research institute INTEXTER.

AEI Tèxtils welcomed the CLAMTEX Virtual Marketplace on the first day (January 20th)  introducing the overall project goals and strategy as the project coordinator. The first webinar focused on inspirational talks towards the digital transition and industry 4.0 highly directed towards textile SMEs.

The second webinar, on January 27th,  focused on the “Digital solutions for integrated industrial management applied in the textile industry” thematic. FINSA, manufacturer of textiles for filtration, presented its status and needs on integrated industrial management.

The third webinar theme was “Automation and sensitization solutions for performance improvement” (February 3rd). In this case, the cluster member presenting was E.CIMA. They explained its progress and future vision in the automation of its knitting and finishing production plants.

The next webinar was about “Robots in industry” (February 10th). LIASA, manufacturer of cords, elastic cords, ribbons and polypropylene yarn, presented its ongoing strategies for digitalization and introduction of robots in the cord manufacturing.

On the last technical webinar focused on “The potential of virtual reality in industry” (February 17th), Intexter (from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia - UPC) featured a success story from the virtualization of images to measure the fitting and sizing of clothing developed within the university. Next, CINPASA, manufacturer of tapes, presented its vision in the use of augmented and virtual reality for showcasing its products and potential synergies that could benefit the industry.

Lastly, the sixth webinar focused on the funding opportunities to leverage the learnings and collaboration between the textile sector and the advanced manufacturing sector. It included a first block presenting the general EU programs for SMEs by representatives from the European Commission including the new framework program Horizon Europe, the EIC Accelerator program and two programs supporting SME scale-up: InvestEU and Single Market Programme.  The second block focused on specific European funding programs for textile and advanced manufacturing companies including the EIT Manufacturing, and the cascade funding programs of GALACTICA and ELIIT.

AEI Tèxtils moderated the first block of the last day, presented the GALACTICA project, coordinated by the cluster, which will soon launch the first call for proposals with 1.2M€ and finally, made the closure of the marketplace as the CLAMTEX project coordinator.

Over the span of the six webinars, the event hosted 35 speakers including 3 inspirational keynote talks towards industry 4.0, 6 industrial success stories, 9 textile companies presenting their vision for the future and 7 advanced manufacturing companies presenting technological solutions to facilitate the digital transition.

The webinars were recorded and are available at the following links:

• Day 1: Towards Industry 4.0
• Day 2: Digital solutions for integrated industrial management applied in the textile industry
• Day 3: Automation and sensitization solutions for performance improvement
• Day 4: Robots in industry
• Day 5: The potential of virtual reality in industry
• Day 6: Funding opportunities for textile SMEs

The CLAMTEX Virtual Marketplace was part of the ClusterXchange program implemented by CLAMTEX together with the European Economic Interest Grouping EU-TEXTILE2030 (for which AEI TÈXTILS is founding member), as host to foster cross-regional collaboration among clusters’ members.