Industry 4.0 is rapidly changing Italian companies, starting with SMEs. 
Sabrina De Santis, Federmeccanica’s Education Director interviewed by Il Sole 24ore, the leading Italian business newspaper, says that it is “A revolution that requires new and higher skills, digital skills, some capability in statistics to read the data, lots of problem solving, to name a few, alongside with traditional, technical-scientific ones.”
Federmeccanica’s awareness of the urgency of tackling the training issue comes from this considerations.
“For this reason – De Santis adds – we are partners of the European New Metro project (www.newmetro.eu) – where also the Ministry of Education and the Mechatronics Technical Schools Network are also involved. The New Metro project is developing a new curriculum at EU level, which contaminates more traditional knowledge and new skills aiming at training “super experts” to be employed in our factories.
The process has now reached an irreversible point, and it is crucial that the entire Italian technical and scientific-professional training chain supports it. Focusing on the data, a recent analysis by Confindustria has shown that, in the next three years, the “core” sectors of “Made in Italy” manufacturing will need about 200 thousand professionals, number that at the moment the training chain is not able to guarantee.
The central theme is “high skills”, and they not only concern Italy: from now to 2025, a considerable number of new professionals will be needed in Europe to support Industry 4.0. And soft skills will also take on high importance: from creativity to problem-solving, from the ability to work in team to autonomy/responsibility in the execution of tasks.
Source: https://www.ilsole24ore.com/