Information and Communication Technology (ICT), automation and robotics are changing
the manufacturing processes and industrial competitiveness. In parallel, educational
institutions are also integrating several aspects of information systems, logistics, mechanics,
electronic processes (mechatronics) and technologies to improve their business courses. This element is especially relevant for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), whose
survival depends, among other factors, on the use they make of ICTs to develop new
organizational models, compete in new markets or enhance their internal and external
communication relationships. Nevertheless, many small enterprises have rather conservative
approaches toward new technologies and thereby miss many opportunities of utilizing
improved technologies (Armenia et al., 2008). SMEs need highly qualified staff with strong
competencies for operating new industrial machines and managing sophisticated production
processes (Casalino et al., 2012). The project results analyzed in this paper can help managers
and trainers to address and go over the problem of low knowledge about possibilities offered
by flexible industrial automation systems. The project, which will be described in depth later,
adapts and develops an innovative approach and learning contents (Uskov and Casalino,
2012) targeted specifically at SMEs to qualify managers and staff on industrial automation
systems. There have been significant debates about the impact of new ICTs on economic
performance (Jin, 1999) and competitiveness in general, and on productivity, efficiency, and
innovation in particular (Metallo et al., 2012). The diffusion of automation can produce new
opportunities to SMEs. It overcomes the concept of traditional organization and emphasizes
the interdependence between the organization of jobs and technology (Fontana and Caroli,
2013). Notably, in seeking an explanation for the acceleration in productivity and economic
growth experienced in many industrialized countries, many economists have looked at the
development, application, and utilization of ICT as a critical success factor. Hence, at the
firm level, the expectations are of greater efficiency, lower costs, and access to larger and new
markets, while governments see the application and use of ICT as generating higher
productivity and competitiveness (Agrifoglio et al., 2013). This paper provides an analysis of
automation and innovation fields and tries to explain their organizational impact on SMEs.
Besides, it tries to understand the main barriers to SMEs with respect to the realization of their
innovative potential and their capacity to create employment (reduced access to external
finance, unavailability of wider distribution channels, low internationalization, etc.). Moreover,
as first argued by New Growth Theory (Romer, 1986), the capacity of continuous innovation
has become a key factor in the global competition of high-income regions in order to acquire
additional factors of production and the new value-adding processes which are necessary to
keep an economy on a sustainable growth path (Ricciardi and De Marco, 2012). SMEs seem to
be the ideal vehicle to promote both goals—sustainable innovation-based economic growth
and employment creation—without trade-offs, given, as frequently assumed, the high flexibility
as well as the relatively labor-intensive mode of production in SMEs. However, the issue as to
how realistic these expectations are is anything but resolved. Despite the experience with a
different number of SME promotion programs, it is still debated as to which specific policy
measure is really suitable to guarantee undistorted competition by compensating firm-size
specific disadvantages, such as the SMEs’ restricted access to public resources.
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