Polish industry looks to automation and skilled worker qualifications

Festo: a driving force in Polish industry for more than 50 years.

Festo has used its know-how in both automation and technical education and training to support Poland's growth and competitiveness as a production location for foreign companies and to support the domestic economy - increasingly with a focus on industry 4.0.

The business established its own national subsidiary in Poland - Festo Sp. z o.o. - in Warsaw 27 years ago. Festo Poland has 120 employees and provides support for around 6500 customers in factory and process automation. Poland is on course for growth and is seeking to fuel the domestic economy using training, knowledge and a higher level of automation. It is seeking to strengthen the economy's competitiveness in the booming global markets in Asia and America.

"In the area of production automation, Polish industry is not yet as far advanced as similar sectors in other European countries. Many companies here are still at the Industry 2.0 level. Many opportunities exist for the development and introduction of automation solutions, qualifications provision and innovation,” explains Marcin Zygadło, Managing Director of Festo Polen.

"Festo Poland's activities are an excellent example of collaboration with Polish industry. Within the Polish national subsidiary, Festo combines the development and production of customer-specific solutions for all key industrial sectors in the country with a tailored offer of training and qualification measures including support for teachers at schools and technical colleges. This collaboration extends back to the 1960s and is now increasingly focused on providing qualifications in line with Industry 4.0," explains Marcin Zygadło.

At its location in Poland, Festo mainly develops and produces individual automation solutions for the areas of automotive production, food processing and packaging, as well as water and power station technology. The production serves the Polish market and Germany as well as neighbouring eastern European countries such as Austria, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria.

Festo began offering the first training programmes in the country as early as the 1960s; these included training in the form of courses at schools and technical universities. Today, Festo Didactic's learning systems are deployed in 600 universities and training institutions in Poland. Today, Poland has a range of highly-qualified engineers for good reason.

In terms of their training and specialist knowledge, they are able to match engineers from other European countries without any difficulties and, as skilled workers, are driving forward Polish reindustrialisation 4.0 and the integration of Polish machine and plant engineers in the global market.

Festo Didactic has developed a cyber-physical learning factory as a research and qualification platform to support Qualification 4.0. Festo is currently working on initial and continuing education and training programmes together with Polish training institutions for training students and skilled workers in Poland as part of Qualification 4.0.