PERES: Successful Pilot Study Trip to USA with the companies

Submitted by Veronica Elena Bocci on 08 April 2019

From March 31st to April 6th the Partners of the ESCP-4i "PERES Promoting European Rail Excellence outSide EU" held the Pilot Study Trip planned in the project to test and fine-tune the model and methodology for group missions in view of the Joint Internationalization Strategy and Implementation Roadmap that will be adopted by June 2019.

The mission had as target the USA and more specifically the States of Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania, that after months of analysis resulted to be the main hubs of the US Rail Supply Industry.

During the 7 days of visits and meetings, the PERES Partners visited the manufacturing facility of Progress Rail and EMD-Electro Motive Diesel in LaGrange; the Metra HQ and rehabilitation of locomotives and coaches Workshops in Chicago; met the US leader in Rail Car Pooling, TTX; met the freight operators Norfolk Southern and Genesee & Wyoming in Ohio and RDC-Rail Development Corportaion in Pittsburgh; met Wabtec, Bombardier and the public transport operator Port Authority in Pittsburgh; met the Ohio Aerospace Institute, introducing also to the NASA Glenn Research Center, to support transfer of technology and new value chains for the Rail Supply SMEs; met at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh - the academia number one in the world for Computer Science - the R&D teams in the field of Rail Health & Monitoring and Next Manufacturing; met the Idea Foundry innovation accelerator in Pittsburgh.

At institutional level round tables have been organised with the Ohio Rail Development Commission, the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Ohio Small Business Development Center, and meetings with the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, the Allegheny Conference and the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh. Among the key moments in Pennsylvania, the welcome given in Pittsburgh to the European Delegation by the Secretary for Economic Development of Pennsylvania State, Dennis M. Davin, on behalf of Governor Tom Wolf, and by the Mayor of Pittsburgh, William Peduto.

The PERES Delegation was composed by 18 persons from 5 COSME Countries:

- Clusters: (Italy) DITECFER with its Coordinator - also PERES Coordinator -, the Responsible for Business Development and the Marketing Officer; (France) i-Trans with the Responsible for the European projects; (Germany) BTS with the Cluster Manager; (UK) Rail Alliance with the Director of Marketing and Communication and with the Brand Manager; (Serbia) BSN/RCSEE with the Cluster Manager and with the Project Manager for PERES;

- Companies: 4 from Italy, 2 from Germany, 2 from UK, 1 from France. 

Given the very successful mission under all points of view and the very high satisfaction from the participating companies, this type of mission will become the reference-model for the PERES Joint Internationalization Strategy and Implementation Roadmap.

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