The history of this union of efforts is very recent but it is already making its influence felt as a factor of change. Thanks to representatives of various forces in the state, this civil association was born in 2017 under the name of Iniciativa Nuevo León 4.0, whose flag is to lead and be a benchmark of smart, digital economy, and whose objectives were set for the year 2025 and from there to continue evolving.
This initiative combines factors in a "quintuple helix" model, which is made up of a key player, the state government, through the Ministries of Economy, Labor, and the Undersecretary of Investment and Industrial Development, plus the Undersecretary of Industry, Commerce and Services; with the government are the businessmen and other economic actors of the metal-mechanic, steel, automotive, household appliances, cement, glass, plastic and other sectors; research centers and universities, as well as the citizenry, and technology-based entrepreneurs. These groups are guided by a governing council and a plan with well-defined focus initiatives, called MIND (acronym for Monterrey Industry).
The general idea is to turn the state and the region into an entity of economic development, high competitiveness and productivity that uses processes of digital transformation and improvement of the operation of companies, in order to reduce costs and detect opportunities for change, or as the general director of the 4.0 Initiative, Clelia Hernández Horta, says, "we seek to be faster and more efficient, and for this reason we also involve the Secretary of Education, because much of what we do has to do with talent and training".
In search of frontier technologies
The initiative is transversal to the 13 clusters of Nuevo León, it collaborates with the innovation 4.0 committees that exist especially in the automotive, household appliances, agri-food, tooling, software or energy sectors; with them, they elaborate the conversation about technologies that are no longer part of a distant future but of the present.
These include technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to simulate production floors and machinery; additive manufacturing, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), Big Data, Cloud Computing. "We have well mapped innovation centers, there are three very important ones, such as one in AI with an impressive computer, another in cybersecurity and another in IoT, in addition to the Science and Data Hub of Tec de Monterrey. These centers already have machinery and equipment, in addition to experts and provide services to the industry, capabilities that are offered to all those investors who come from different countries and want to come to Nuevo León."
The presence of the Iniciativa Nuevo León 4.0 at FABTECH Mexico is explained by the importance for the metal-mechanical and related industries of identifying a high-impact connector that has a well-mapped productive ecosystem.
"We have about 250 allies of different sizes and sectors, it allows us to give attention to both a large company that turns and tells us: I am looking for this solution. We in the ecosystem see what can be approached for it. Once we evaluate whether they are ready to deliver the solution, both technically, operationally and administratively, given the regulations in Mexico, we connect them to register them as suppliers in the supply chains", explains Hernández Horta, who is also a businesswoman.
The human factor in digital
Those who do not take risks to overcome the challenges that humanity is already facing will be left out of the progress, experts and trends warn. Companies that do not understand this will tend to disappear," says engineer Cleila Hernández, "but just as we must join the great technological revolution, we must ensure that the human being is always at the center".
He explains that Industry 4.0 must be followed by Society 5.0, one in which robots and AI do not have the tasks of creativity and imagination –the field of bioethics– and one in which humans configure technology and are not overtaken by the very tools they created.
With this in mind, we must develop the 4.0 era. And for this, it is essential to train talent. The Iniciativa Nuevo León 4.0 has well identified careers, specialties, master's degrees and doctorates, as well as on-site and virtual diploma courses, certifications and everything that involves updating. Updates in the curricula of universities are becoming faster and faster.
But not only at the engineering level. The production floor is key. "Sometimes we do not see that the technical level is essential in the digital transformation –summarizes Cleila Hernandez, Systems Engineer–, we need the technician to be ready and we have to train them, so that they have not only the theoretical but also the practical for the automated processes, as it happens in the automotive industry. In the line of robots, there must be the talents to change to the next level, placing sensors, attending the lines, so we must invest and promote dual education, even in technicians who are already on the floor, we must give them more tools and strengthen technical schools focused on the high specialization of the industry.”