Good practice:

Night of Industry 4.0 model factories

Digital preparedness of Hungarian SMEs lags significantly behind European peers and large companies. Missing the adoption of suitable Industry 4.0 solutions brings along decline in competitiveness. High share of SMEs is not even prone to listen to and study advantages that Industry 4.0 solutions can yield therefore one needs find innovative ways to raise their attention.
Aim of the practice is threefold: (1) raise the visibility of transforming companies for each other’s attention to facilitate future collaboration; (2) introduce the practice of digitalisation to the potential employees and also to the local community; (3) prove that digitalisation improves working environment of industrial business for white- and blue-collar workers, too. Pre-selected, best performing companies open up their shopfloors to SMEs and any other interested participants for one night (4:00 pm – 10:00 pm) all over Hungary. On the shopfloors I4.0 solutions in operation are shown and explained in everyday language by experts.
Stakeholders include the I4.0 model factories (companies) that open their gates to visitors. IFKA non-profit Ltd (a state-owned agency) and ICT-H (the No. 1. digital SME association of Hungary) implement the practice. Ministry of Finance is the project sponsor, Ministry of Innovation and Technology is the concerned policy maker. Primary target groups are staff of SMEs and youngsters that are about to enter the labour market.

Costs directly related to this practice are in the magnitude of EUR 200,000–500,000/event. (The practice is part of an ~EUR 17 million complex project). Due the nature of the event (annually recurring for 1 day) staff directly involved in the organisation and running of the practice is temporary.

So far the four nights have attracted dynamically growing interests both from demonstration companies and event participants as follows (2017 – 25 companies, 2000 participants; 2018 – 26, 2800; 2019 – 73, 6500; 2020 (online event due to COVID19 – 76, ~7000). Interest in participation does not concentrate on Budapest but covers the whole country (this holds both for demonstration companies and participants).

Lack of openness of SMEs is a major barrier, as such one needs truly interesting, even entertaining opportunities to start engaging them.
A critical selling point of the event is that people enter physically the shopfloor and gain experience in person – this was challenged by COVID (see below).

Low entry threshold to participation on the event required from visitors is crucial: visitors choose their preferred model factory on a webpage and make a simple, fast and cost-free pre-registration to the event online. Full geographical coverage ensures that a model-factory can be reached in close vicinity of the visitor (no need to travel hours).
To reach an audience as broad as possible a cross-sectorial representation of participating model factories is essential. In Hungary the scope ranges from aircraft manufacturing over horticulture to disinfectants manufacturing.
Best performing companies show high interest in participating the programme because it offers them a new way of “promotion” among relevant stakeholders (suppliers, potential labour-force, local residents, public policy makers).
COVID-19 forced the event to the online space in 2020 but the event could successfully adopt to the new circumstances through “virtual tours” and video-aided factory introductions.