A total of 37 Italian packaging machinery manufacturers have responded to Confindustria’s appeal to voluntarily make their sites available for use in the national Covid-19 vaccination programme. A large number of companies based in many areas of the country have responded to the call to create a map of potential “community factory” sites throughout Italy, an initiative that has seen a total of more than 10,000 factories proposed. This figure reflects businesses’ strong spirit of service towards the country and represents a social and entrepreneurial response to the period of uncertainty that has been afflicting the entire global economy for over a year.
The Italian employers’ federation Confindustria launched the initiative following discussions with the Covid-19 Emergency Commissioner, General Figliuolo, with the aim of identifying companies willing to make their sites available for use as vaccination centers. This operation will allow millions of people working at the companies and belonging to the local communities to be vaccinated simultaneously. Confindustria initially approached large trade associations such as Ucima whose members tend to be highly structured organizations with suitable infrastructure for an operation of this scale.
The Covid-19 emergency that broke out last year did not catch the sector’s businesses unprepared, as their decision to adopt Industry 4.0 technologies for remote control of installations, testing and assistance have enabled them to maintain close contacts with their customers all over the world. A faster and more structured vaccination programme will enable Italian companies to once again offer their renowned expertise and know-how to all international markets and respond rapidly to their customers’ needs.
