European industry is entering a phase where operational fragility is no longer driven primarily by mechanical failure, labour disruption, or energy availability, but by the digital connective tissue that binds physical operations together. Over the past three decades, large manufacturers, utilities, logistics operators, and process industries have accumulated complex layers of enterprise resource planning systems, manufacturing...
Under the current phase of European industrial restructuring, Serbia is no longer competing to be noticed as a low-cost IT destination. It is competing to be selected as a strategic nearshore engineering extension for EU industrial groups that are under simultaneous pressure from digitalisation, regulatory compliance, cost discipline, and supply-chain resilience. The real question for executives and...
Europe’s tightening environmental framework for chemical and materials refining is colliding with a structural shortage of execution-grade engineering capacity. The bottleneck is no longer access to capital, proven abatement technology, or regulatory clarity. It is the lack of sufficiently deep, multidisciplinary engineering teams capable of translating environmental obligations into buildable, permit-ready, and operable plant designs...
When OEM-led after-sales and lifecycle-support operations reach critical mass in a country, they rarely remain confined to the OEM perimeter. Knowledge accumulates, engineers mature, and a secondary ecosystem emerges. In industrial economies, this secondary layer often takes the form of independent system integrators and retrofit specialists—firms that do not compete with OEMs on original equipment,...
Behind every piece of high-technology equipment operating legally in Europe or other regulated markets lies an immense body of documentation, compliance engineering, and lifecycle safety analysis. This work rarely attracts attention, yet without it equipment cannot be sold, upgraded, retrofitted, or even legally maintained. As product lifecycles lengthen and regulatory regimes tighten, documentation and compliance...
In high-technology equipment markets, the weakest link in asset performance is rarely the machine itself. It is the human interface around it. As industrial systems become more software-defined, sensor-rich, and tightly optimized, the skill gap between equipment capability and operator competence has widened sharply. This gap has transformed training and certification from a support obligation...
Modern industrial equipment generates vast quantities of operational data, yet much of its value remains untapped. Fault logs, sensor readings, and service records are often used reactively, addressing failures after they occur rather than preventing them. As after-sales support consolidates and digitizes, this data becomes the raw material for a new class of industrial software:...
One of the least discussed but most destabilizing forces in modern industrial systems is component obsolescence. High-technology machinery increasingly combines mechanical structures designed to last 20–40 years with electronic components whose commercial lifecycles may be 3–7 years. The resulting mismatch creates a structural risk for OEMs and operators alike. When a critical component is discontinued,...
For most European industrial OEMs, the most profitable part of the value chain is no longer the sale of new equipment. It is what happens afterwards. As machinery lifetimes stretch toward 20–30 years, and as sustainability, cost pressure, and supply-chain risk reshape procurement logic, remanufacturing has emerged as one of the highest-margin and least visible...
Europe’s chemical and materials refining sector is entering a phase of structural transformation driven less by expansion and more by environmental constraint. Across metals, battery materials, specialty chemicals, fertilizers, and advanced materials, operators are being forced to redesign core processes under tighter emissions limits, stricter water rules, complex waste obligations, and rising carbon costs. The...
