Industrial competitiveness has required from companies elevated quality standards, cost reduction and a high capacity of delivery. Within this scenario, an important industrial segment has a fundamental role: the tool and die industry. Tools and dies are resources that are fit to a specific task and are either produced as a single-unit batch or intermittently according to demand. Generally, this industrial segment has demonstrated low competitiveness, which in turn affects the performance of

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... er production chains that rely on it. This is the case of the plastic transformation and metalworking industry, especially when forged and stamped parts are considered. This low competitiveness is a consequence of the deficient corporate structure found in these companies, which results in lack of compliance to quality standards, high costs and long delivery times. Besides the support given to current tool-and-die making clusters, a decentralization structuring project of this industry to other regions of Brazil is necessary. This need is illustrated by new automotive and other consumer goods production plants that have recently started operating in the northeast and central regions of Brazil. In order to contribute to this issue, this article proposes a strategic management model for the incubation process of industrial companies that comply with competitiveness standards required by current market demands. Besides the usual difficulties related to incubation and the creation of any enterprise, the tooling industry faces an additional obstacle related to investment in assets (buildings, machinery, and software). Therefore, a nucleation process based on an existing structure that will be shared by several companies is proposed (IDS -Industrial Development Structure). This structure shall be preferably established on an ICT (Brazilian denomination for Science and Technology Institutes) that shall contribute with professional training (tool and die making) and specialized services (e.g. metrology and tool tryouts).