Ramon Pastor and Pere Navarro will debate about industry 4.0 in 'Moments Estel·lars'

On October 9, CASA SEAT in Barcelona will host a new session of the cycle The New Barcelona – Moments Estel·lars, organized by The New Barcelona Post with the aim of highlighting the main assets that the Catalan capital treasures in the economic, cultural and social spheres. This time, the meeting will evaluate the potential of the Catalan capital to be a global benchmark and lead the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Southern Europe, also known as Industry 4.0, which will change the way most businesses operate thanks to the digitalization of the entire value chain and the massive adoption of new technologies such as robotics, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, sensors, nanotechnology, the Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics.

To know where we are, what is at stake, and what challenges and opportunities we have on the table in the field of Industry 4.0, we have invited two great experts: Ramon Pastor, vice president and global general manager of HP's 3D printing business and general manager of the multinational's campus in Sant Cugat; and Pere Navarro, special delegate of the State in the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona (CZFB).

The session will be moderated by journalist and UPF-BSM professor Toni Aira and will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, October 9, with the motto Barcelona as a benchmark for Industry 4.0. The meeting will be sponsored by CASA SEAT, Must Media Group and Barcelona Global and can later be recovered in podcast format on Spotify or watch the video on our Youtube channel. Registrations are now open to attend as an audience and also to ask questions to the speakers. To get a free ticket, click here.

From the CZFB, Pere Navarro has become the standard-bearer for Industry 4.0 in Catalonia. He was a pioneer in promoting the launch of an additive manufacturing or 3D printing laboratory at the Consorci's headquarters and has been the architect of the construction of DFactory Barcelona, a complex dedicated exclusively to fostering and developing this new industrial revolution and attracting talent, investments, and cutting-edge technology.

"It is a source of pride to see that we are a global reference model in promoting Industry 4.0, as demonstrated by the fact that DFactory Barcelona has become the reference Industry 4.0 ecosystem in Southern Europe," Navarro recently stated. We will also review the Barcelona New Economy Week (BNEW) with him, which will hold its fourth edition from October 2 to 5.

Precisely, one of the companies that occupies the most square meters in DFactory is HP, which has installed a 3D printing factory in the building, a business unit whose global development headquarters is located in Sant Cugat. Ramon Pastor is responsible for directing the campus, where more than 2,500 people from up to 65 nationalities work, but he is also the general director of the 3D printing business, leading global responsibility for the new range of printers that allow manufacturing metal parts. From this position, Pastor is a privileged witness to the potential of additive manufacturing to revolutionize all industrial sectors and usher in a new era marked by mass personalization, the emergence of new business models, and a more efficient and flexible supply chain.

HP leads this race on a global scale, largely thanks to the hundreds of engineers working at the Sant Cugat campus, who between 2011 and 2022 have developed more than 600 inventions in the field of 3D printing, which has resulted in more than 2,000 registered patent applications that have decisively contributed to the evolution and acceleration of this business worldwide, as reported by The New Barcelona Post last June.

What impact will Industry 4.0 have on our daily lives? How will this new industrial revolution affect employment? What new business models will emerge? What new professions will be associated with them? How is Catalan industry facing all these disruptions? What reforms should be promoted? Do we have the right training and talent attraction model? What is Barcelona's potential to be a benchmark in this field? What does it mean for Catalonia to have cutting-edge facilities like the HP campus in Sant Cugat? We will try to answer these and many other questions on Monday the 9th, thanks to the wisdom of Navarro and Pastor, who will also have the opportunity to answer the concerns raised by readers of The New Barcelona Post who come to CASA SEAT.

Pere Navarro has been at the helm of the CZFB since 2018 and was mayor of Terrassa for ten years (2002-2012) for the PSC, a party for which he became first secretary, a member of Parliament, and a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat. For his part, Ramon Pastor joined HP in 1992 as an engineer in the R&D laboratory. Since then, he has held various leadership positions in Operations, R&D, Marketing, and Business Management. Enthusiastic about innovation and technology, the executive is the President of the IAM 3D Hub, a European digital innovation center in 3D specializing in additive manufacturing. He is also a trustee of the Eurecat Technology Center, the Catalunya Cultura Foundation, and is a member of the Plenary of the Council of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, where he graduated in industrial engineering.