SURVEY (May, September 2020)

During May and September 2020, the INTRIDE Romanian partnership has submitted the survey on “Needs’ analysis related to Soft, Digital, Green sets of competencies in the furniture – interiors sector” to SMEs working in the manufacturing sector, specifically in the Transylvanian Interior sector.

The first workshop gathered many members, especially companies from Transylvanian Furniture Cluster and we had the occasion to present the INTRIDE project.

We were focused during this workshop, that took place in the “Innovation for Business event”, on the first results from our questionnaire regarding the skills of future designers (technical, design, digital, soft and green skills).

The second workshop was focused on the final report and on the feedback we received from the universities and companies regarding this topic (extra information towards our research).

The technical skills identified as most important were related to product management and process engineering. The ones committed to develop are product management and project management. On the other hand, the skills recommended for training were automation and process engineering.

The digital skills with the highest percentage of importance were e-commerce and social-media and these ones are also the first two recommended for training. Regarding the design skills, the most important ones are visualization and creative thinking. The first ones recommended for training are design methodologies and operation analysis.

If we are talking about green skills, the ones quoted as most important are consumption reduction and sustainable product development. The first two skills recommended for training are consumption reduction and resource management.

Talking about soft skills the main point of interest was around teamwork and communication, while the ones recommended for training were time management and communication.

WORKSHOP (September 2020)

The Romanian workshop was carried out virtually, by TFC as moderators, involving SMEs – furniture producers and universities.

We gathered for this workshop 4 representatives from universities (University of Art Cluj, Technical University Cluj, University from Brasov)  and 3 representatives from furniture companies and also 3 persons involved in the management of INTRIDE project.

The workshop was focused on:  

• Discussions between universities and companies regarding the results of the questionnaire and further comments, suggestions to improve a future master curricula for young designers.

The more important considerations emerged during the workshop are:

• High-performance equipment is not enough if you don’t have a place to sell the furniture products
• The Technical University offers the opportunity for studying programming, also automatization and developing new products
• It was suggested there is place for improvement regarding critical thinking and also, for data visualization
• Digital marketing has gained a top position in the companies 
• One of our TFC members told us their company is taking steps towards digitalization
• The digitalization should be implemented also in the technological process
• The virtual reality is not so important yet in the companies, because the basic stuff are solved through 3D, renderings, therefore the companies are not willing to have extra costs for now
• Universities have courses for eco-design
• It was recommended to take in consideration more the importance of design in projecting furniture and also the artificial intelligence in the future, having in mind the final consumer while choosing the design 
• One of our companies are interested in a design training 
• Time-management is on the list of socio-emotional competences, that could be improved
• Another topic discussed from a company was referring to the importance of packing and logistics
• As a conclusion, the universities have a strong desire to create awareness towards companies regarding the importance of design in production and also, to gain opening towards new technologies, virtual reality etc.