“The transition to Industry 4.0 is now decisive for restoring Tunisia’s place in international competitiveness,” said Neila Nouira Gongi, Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy.
As part of the national initiative “Towards an industry 4.0 in Tunisia”, the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME) and its partners, GIZ Tunisia and the Sousse Competence Center, Novation Industry 4.0 Center brought together, on December 6, 2022, the actors of the industrial ecosystem around Next Industry: a retrospective on supporting Tunisian industrialists in the modernization of their production process.
“We aim, with our partners, to energize the industrial ecosystem by integrating technologies into the operation of companies. With Novation Industry 4.0 Center, we support 100 companies in their transitions to I4.0. These companies are based in Sousse and in several regions of Tunisia,” said Henrik Wichmann, Director of the Digital Transformation Program at GIZ Tunisia.
Novation City has been supporting industrialists in Sousse, Bizerte, Nabeul, Monastir… and several other regions of Tunisia in the field for 3 years in integrating innovations into their operations. This support takes the form, among other things, of raising awareness, diagnosing and putting you in contact with technology suppliers.
Technological innovation and digital maturity
In order to continue to raise awareness of the importance of this new industrial revolution, Next Industry presented the first barometer of digital maturity of Tunisian industries and deepened the reflection around data, cybersecurity, training and the stages of implementation. production units that integrate new technologies into their operations.
“The smart factory is to be built step by step. It’s about changing habits, even old structures by supporting and integrating new solutions. The 4.0 factory is built with the men who are in the company and not at their expense”, recalls a Tunisian business leader participating in the first discussion panel.
For information systems experts, the modernization is accompanied by a company data security plan. “The future of automation lies in system safety. Optimizing and building local solutions in complete safety avoids being a victim of its sophistication. We salute the path taken by Tunisia towards Industry 4.0 in Africa. We want to be part of this movement and support the ecosystem,” added Stephen Ozoigbo, senior director for emerging economies at Arm.
Amine Benhenni, the co-founder of Dataswati, recalled, for his part, “the importance of consolidating data to model processes. This can start with basic analyzes that feed machine learning and gradually lead to a complete simulation of the production system. These first steps are therefore not heavy investments for SMEs.
Anticipate and respond to needs
Next Industry also allowed various local startups and tech providers to present their solutions for a smarter industry aligned with international standards in terms of productivity and respect for the ecological impact. “We are a Tunisian company that supplies assembly and handling robots and intervenes in the packaging of products. We want our solutions to be able to be integrated into Tunisian industrial SMEs ,” said a manager from Falku-Robotics and machine vision.
“Controlling energy and the carbon impact is a challenge for Tunisian companies on the international scene. Our solution not only provides a dashboard of all energy consumption. It is also a tool for diagnosis, forecasting and understanding of discrepancies which makes it possible to anticipate needs and provide adequate responses”, underlined his counterpart from the company Smart Energy Saving. The Next Industry event is part of the national initiative “Towards an industry 4.0 in Tunisia” launched by the MIME. It is supported by the special training and employment initiative – Invest for jobs, mandated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ) and implemented by GIZ Tunisia through its digital transformation program.
