Exploring connections between art & science

With this intervention, the Marche Region aims to strengthen businesses’ capacity to operate in new international markets by supporting investment projects for strategic digital innovation in commercial functions. These projects are directed towards identifying new business opportunities in already served foreign markets and exploring new markets and suppliers. This call is activated within the framework of the ERDF ROP 2014-2020 of the Marche Region and Article 6 of Regional Law No. 4 of 17.03.2022 “Promotion of investments, innovation, and digital transformation of the entrepreneurial system in Marche”.

In particular, the Marche Region supports investment projects aimed at market diversification to differentiate export shares, identify new distribution channels to reduce costs, and strengthen businesses’ capacity, especially in digital terms.

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Goals

Starting from the concept of multichannel sales, the company’s goal has been to develop a marketing strategy, integrated communication, and promotion across various company social channels by implementing specific synergistic actions between engineering production processes, facilitating data interchange between internal and external personnel, and conducting research and utilizing advanced materials.

Results

- the revitalization of the traditional textile manufacturing sector with an innovative product, a unique multi-axial grid (i-Mesh), intended for markets such as furnishings, design, construction, and architectural design.

It finds its perfect placement in application sectors such as Culture, Office, Retail, Hospitality, Urban, and Big Areas, promoting the product through advanced value-added activities aligned with Industry 4.0 principles and creating new market niches.

- modernization through the adoption and dissemination of new technologies. The company has invested in a significantly improved production process, incorporating mechatronic technologies associated with Industry 4.0. This necessitates the adoption of machinery and equipment not currently available in the traditional textile market, thus requiring internal development with external specialists locally, domestically, and internationally, at both industrial and engineering research levels with various entities. This fosters a widespread network on an international scale, consequently generating technological diversification from existing specializations in related fields.

- the development of new economic activities through radical technological changes and a series of significant innovations towards Industry 4.0 parameters, relating to organizational and commercial processes. This aims to achieve a more advanced production and company management model, directed towards integrating physical and digital systems and conducting complex analyses to improve not only the product but also working conditions. It aims to increase plant productivity and work quality, leading to the attainment of ISO 9001 Certification. This allows for increasingly user-oriented and open innovation.

Financial support received: 43.320,31 euros.

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With this intervention, the Marche Region intends to support the engineering of products and the industrialization of research and experimental development results, in order to substantially innovate products and/or processes and to determine medium and long-term competitive advantages.

In fact, to strengthen its competitiveness, it is considered essential that the business system incorporates the knowledge and results of research and development activity in an increasingly significant way into its industrial applications. Furthermore, it is considered essential to support companies in the transition from the engineering/industrialization phase to the marketing phase of the product on the market, supporting the entire value chain that combines research with the market and thus reducing the potential gap between knowledge production and subsequent marketing, with particular reference to the verification of the performance (tests/trials/pilot lines) of the product/process, the optimization of production costs and transport costs, the improvement of organizational aspects and logistics, the reduction of time to market , the identification of additional services to be offered to the final consumer and the promotion of the new product on the reference markets, both national and international.

Financial support received: 316,000 euros

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Goals

Choice of materials: engineering of the i-Mesh multi-axial grid for the facade panels and related hooking system

Executive design of the pilot production line Start of full production Prototype construction, test execution Marketing operations to support the previously mentioned activities

Results

Acquisition of pilot production line: the new pilot line designed for the production of i-Mesh facade has been installed and is being tested

Choice of test materials: test materials were purchased for the technical tests sent to the POLIMI laboratory of the University of Milan and for the creation of new patterns that will characterize the new i-Mesh facade collections External specialist consultancy: technical consultancy for the study of feasibility and implementation of the new CAD-CAM protocol for the new pilot line, IT consultancy for the study of the architecture of the new IT network to be implemented for the new factory, consultancy for the coordination of activities for the creation and installation of the new line pilot, technical consultancy for the study of the technical-physical characteristics of the new anchoring system of the i-Mesh facade panels, consultancy for the study of the possible combinations and interactions between the type of design, type of fiber, type of resin to be used for the Mesh facade, consultancy for the study and market research for the choice of technologies to adopt for the realization of the pilot line for the production, consultancy for industrial and intellectual property related to the filing of the European Patent: defense of applications for extension of US patents, EU, CHINA, RUSSIA

Trials and laboratory tests for product/process certifications Marketing and Communication: consultancy for the creation of a new integrated project for contract management, control of market penetration, connection between internal designers and architectural firms, consultancy for the study and creation of the new brand image.

The project has undergone some cost variations in the various expenditure items that have become necessary in the course of carrying out the activities, in order to allow the full achievement of the set objectives.

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The POR FESR is the operational program of the Marche region that uses the funding made available by the European Union, through the European Regional Development Fund. The project, which envisaged financial support of 98,500 euros from the European Union, had as its aim the development of internationalization and innovation processes through complementary, integrated and coherent interventions with the new business models.

The innovation interventions of the product and its production line, aimed at responding to an increasingly demanding and personalized demand coming from foreign markets, were mainly aimed at creating new product collections by enhancing design, eco-design, aesthetic conception, design, prototyping and customized production.

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Goals

The Innovation project was based on 5 objectives:

1. Use of innovative materials of natural origin for the creation of new collections

2. Study and obtaining of product certifications for the purposes of verifying the environmental quality, well-being and comfort of the environments

3. Customized design that can meet market needs

4. Reuse, recycling and recovery of materials

5. Product traceability system

The Internationalization project was based on 3 objectives:

1. Value-added services for new target markets

2. Implementation of initiatives abroad

3. Identification of marketing management tools

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‍Results

Summary of the activities carried out related to Internationalization and Innovation

1. i-Mesh trademark registration in UAE, South Korea, Japan and many other countries markets

2. Promotion of brand communication activities through artistic/installation collaborations to favor the development of target markets

3. Identification of the tools for the realization of events and temporary artistic or commercial installations, temporary showrooms, talks and seminars and workshops

4. New commercial agreements to cover the markets of interest with selected agents and resellers

5. Increased brand awareness with Direct Marketing and Digital Marketing activities;

6. Expansion of the commercial structure with technicians/salesmen able to increase confidence with the customer through technical-commercial consultancy formulas

7. Facilitation, through the use of software and multimedia platforms, of the exchange of design data between the customer and the company

8. Optimization of the institutional site in order to make it more and more performing and to guarantee responses in real time

9. Promotion, through the use of ethical claims on multimedia platforms, corporate website, brochures and information, of the company's commitment to respect the parameters of environmental sustainability

10. Further improvement of the aspects related to product customization such as color, density, design, type of fiber, through the offer and parametric algorithms with which the customer decides in real time the configuration that best corresponds to his wishes among the countless possibilities offered.

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