FAIST creates 300 new jobs
The FAIST mobilisation project, with a consortium of 45 co-promoters aiming to develop 34 innovative products by the end of 2025, is already well underway. According to Florbela Silva, the project coordinator, 300 new jobs will be created in the next few months, 100 of which will be highly specialised (high level of education).
With a budget of around 50 million euros, the FAIST project is supported by the PRR (Recovery and Resilience Programme) and involves more than four dozen partnerships with multidisciplinary skills, such as universities, companies and science and technology institutions. According to Florbela Silva, the aim is to "increase the degree of specialisation of the Portuguese footwear industry in new product types” and increase "the supply capacity of Portuguese footwear companies by strengthening their ability to manufacture medium and large orders, using more efficient assembly processes”.
The director of the CTCP’s Innovation and Digital Manufacturing unit stresses that the FAIST "was created to respond to the needs of the footwear and leather goods sector and to prepare the sector for the challenges of the future, placing a decisive bet on digital technologies and the sustainability of processes and products, aiming at a greater efficiency and profitability, rapid response to the market, improved working conditions and product differentiation”.
It's also important to "broaden the range of specialisation of the industry with new product typologies based on knowledge, increase the supply capacity of companies and attract qualified human resources”. In particular, knowledge will "underpin recruitment and contribute to gender equality and equal opportunities and to social cohesion in the areas where the industry is located, with an impact on employment, retention of skilled talent, exports and more sustainable regional development; increasing the visibility and awareness of the footwear cluster, which could aspire to increase its involvement in the global supply chain”. "Increasing domestic production of equipment and advanced technologies, investing in the manufacture of sustainable products and creating automatic production lines” is also of paramount in this context.
For Florbela Silva, FAIST is all about "the reindustrialisation and the use of high-productivity processes that allow companies to produce small, medium and large orders at competitive prices, enabling them to enter the large distribution chains that in the past sourced their supplies from cheaper markets such as Asia”.
The FAIST mobilisation project, with a consortium of 45 co-promoters aiming to develop 34 innovative products by the end of 2025, is already well underway. According to Florbela Silva, the project coordinator, 300 new jobs will be created in the next few months, 100 of which will be highly specialised (high level of education).
With a budget of around 50 million euros, the FAIST project is supported by the PRR (Recovery and Resilience Programme) and involves more than four dozen partnerships with multidisciplinary skills, such as universities, companies and science and technology institutions. According to Florbela Silva, the aim is to "increase the degree of specialisation of the Portuguese footwear industry in new product types” and increase "the supply capacity of Portuguese footwear companies by strengthening their ability to manufacture medium and large orders, using more efficient assembly processes”.
The director of the CTCP’s Innovation and Digital Manufacturing unit stresses that the FAIST "was created to respond to the needs of the footwear and leather goods sector and to prepare the sector for the challenges of the future, placing a decisive bet on digital technologies and the sustainability of processes and products, aiming at a greater efficiency and profitability, rapid response to the market, improved working conditions and product differentiation”.
It's also important to "broaden the range of specialisation of the industry with new product typologies based on knowledge, increase the supply capacity of companies and attract qualified human resources”. In particular, knowledge will "underpin recruitment and contribute to gender equality and equal opportunities and to social cohesion in the areas where the industry is located, with an impact on employment, retention of skilled talent, exports and more sustainable regional development; increasing the visibility and awareness of the footwear cluster, which could aspire to increase its involvement in the global supply chain”. "Increasing domestic production of equipment and advanced technologies, investing in the manufacture of sustainable products and creating automatic production lines” is also of paramount in this context.
For Florbela Silva, FAIST is all about "the reindustrialisation and the use of high-productivity processes that allow companies to produce small, medium and large orders at competitive prices, enabling them to enter the large distribution chains that in the past sourced their supplies from cheaper markets such as Asia”.