Colombia Launches Latin America’s First Digital Transformation Center for Plastics Industry
Colombia is set to establish Latin America’s first Digital Transformation Center for the Plastics Industry, designed to help plastics processing companies adopt Industry 4.0 technologies while improving productivity and sustainability.
The center, called i4Plas, will focus on technologies including the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, digital twins, additive manufacturing, prototyping, and artificial intelligence.
The initiative was developed in response to three major challenges facing the sector: the need to increase productivity, rising energy costs, and a shortage of workers with specialized digital skills.
i4Plas aims to help plastics processing plants in Colombia transition toward “smart factories” through applied research, industrial pilot projects, and technical training.
Improving sustainability in Colombia’s plastics industry
i4Plas will be officially launched at Colombiaplast, which will take place from Sept. 28 to Oct. 2 at Corferias in Bogota. The initiative is being developed by the Colombian Association of Plastics Industries (Acoplasticos), the Institute for Plastics and Rubber Training and Research (ICIPC), and KERN IoP.
A study conducted by Acoplasticos with support from the Inter-American Development Bank examined the challenges facing the plastics industry as it adopts digital technologies.
The study found that while the sector has a diverse machinery base and the ability to adapt, companies face barriers to innovation, including high costs, limited financing, and insufficient access to technology and training.
“With i4Plas we want to improve the productivity standards of the plastics industry in Colombia. With this, we seek to make the national industry more competitive in international markets and, at the same time, improve its sustainability performance,” Acoplasticos President Daniel Mitchell said in a statement.
Among the operational challenges i4Plas plans to address are material waste and unplanned equipment downtime.
According to the project, scrap accounts for between 5% and 10% of out-of-specification parts in injection molding. Unplanned downtime also reduces overall equipment effectiveness and can cost more than US$400 for every hour an injection molding machine is out of operation.
Training workers for new digital roles
The industry is also facing rising energy costs and increasing pressure to meet circular economy requirements, including Colombia’s Law 2232 of 2022 and regulations affecting companies that do business in international markets.
Another challenge is the shortage of specialized workers. Although nearly 78% of manufacturers include artificial intelligence in their strategies, most acknowledge that they lack the technical capabilities needed to implement it.
As i4Plas expands, it will offer companies a range of services, including digital maturity assessments, Industry 4.0 audits, and digital transformation roadmaps.
The center will also include a demonstration laboratory featuring digital twins of production lines, collaborative robotics pilot cells, and machine vision technology. Other services will include the integration of IoT sensors and energy analytics at manufacturing plants, advanced mold design, and additive manufacturing trials for tooling.
Training programs will focus on emerging digital roles, including plant data analysts, additive manufacturing technicians, and collaborative robotics technicians.
The project also includes plans for a digital manufacturing laboratory, training classrooms, and spaces where companies can collaborate on projects.
“ICIPC has worked for 32 years in applied research and training for the plastics and rubber industry, with services that serve more than 1,500 companies each year,” ICIPC Director General Anamaria Henao said.
“With i4Plas we are taking a natural step: bringing that technical knowledge to a permanent space where, through digital technologies, the industry can validate cutting-edge technologies before incorporating them into its production lines,” she added.
The i4Plas model is inspired by German approaches to industrial innovation that encourage cooperation among academic institutions, companies, and industry associations.
“At KERN IoP and PM Tec, we have spent more than a decade helping plastic injection molding plants optimize their processes with data: if we do not measure and understand what is happening in each machine, we cannot improve,” said Miguel Garzon, CTO of KERN IoP.
“i4Plas allows us to scale that knowledge and put it at the service of an entire sector, bringing technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and digital twins closer to companies of all sizes.”