After the launching of the project on the Production Innovation Valley, on 27 April 2020 the project partners Aedilis, BaltLed, Pažangios Inovacijos, Prezicika Metrology and Proftools formed an innovative production cluster under the name of the Production Innovation Valley. Its purpose is to join production organisations together into a group that aims to increase both horizontal and vertical integration of industries; to achieve, through the development and employment of digital and green technologies, a transformation into a high- and medium-technology industries; to expand production and export of products with high value added; to enable an increase in international competitiveness of both the Cluster’s members and Lithuania’s industrial sector as a whole.
As interest in the activities of the Production Innovation Valley is growing, the founders of the Cluster have decided to admit new members. Any organisation that wishes to be a part of the production innovation ecosystem is welcome.
The Baltic FEZ, a management company, is the first new member of the Cluster. Simonas Petrulis, the company’s CEO, says: ‘Our free economic zone is currently focussed on investments with a higher value added that are related to innovative biotechnology and food production industries. Both foreign and domestic businesses are equal priorities to us. It is important for us to be in a club of production innovation leaders, to get to know Lithuanian production companies – and participate in the European value chains at the same time. We believe that many successful projects will be implemented jointly with the team of the Production Innovation Valley and other businesses of the Cluster.’
Gintaras Vilda, Director of Pažangios Inovacijos UAB which acts as the coordinator of the Production Innovation Valley Cluster, expresses his satisfaction that the first new member of the Cluster is a company of the region. ‘Production innovation, in particular in the digital area, is boundless. It is quite symbolic that a Marijampolė company, which has stepped into a new stage of business and has ambitious goals to attract innovative production organisations to the region, has become a new member of the Cluster. The Production Innovation Valley is an ecosystem for any organisation of Lithuania as innovative ideas are not subject to geographic restrictions.’
A cluster is a voluntary conglomeration of businesses and/or science and academic organisations and other entities that functions according to a principle of partnership. Its members act jointly with the aim to increase value added. Areas on which members of the cluster are focused: information and communication, cooperation, training and skills improvement, innovation and technologies, common marketing, international development, and partnerships with other clusters. Objectives of cluster development include the enhancing of competitiveness by increasing the value creation efficiency, developing products with higher value added, and joining international RDI networks.