Introduction

Smart Factory Hub is a project under the framework of Interreg Danube Transnational Programme. The project started in January 2017 and it is going to come to an end in June 2019.

The main objective of the Smart Factory Hub project is to improve framework conditions for innovation in the area of “smart factory”. Therefore, the project’s goal is to develop R&D and business policy conditions for transnational cooperation in the manufacturing industry. 

First Year Review Meeting in Steyr

PROFACTOR (Austria) organized the Smart Factory Hub First Year Review, Project and Steering Committee meeting in Steyr on 6-7 December 2017.

The Joint Secretariat of the Transnational Danube Programme was represented by Mr. Niculae Marius Valentin. On the first day, there was a first-year overview with a special attention on the Project implementation and Communication activities.

An important and interesting part of the meeting was the first international Smart Factory HUB Workshop where the project partners used case scenarios for the Smart Factory Cooperation Platform (link) which was followed by a Labtour @ PROFACTOR. Smart Factory HUB partnership also identified the next steps in the project.

Upcoming Project Related Events

Smart Factory HUB Training Academy

IAT University of Stuttgart is organizing a SMART FACTORY HUB Training Academy.
The training will take place on 24-26 April 2018 in Stuttgart. The event will be held at the hotel Campus.Guest which is part of Stuttgart University.During the three days, project partner members and selected facilitators will learn about Industry 4.0 through training sessions, workshops, factory visits, and through the visit of Fraunhofer Labs (Future Work Lab).

Venue: CAMPUS.GUEST
Universitätsstraße 34, D-70569 Stuttgart- Vaihingen
Tel: +49 711 / 97 464-0
Web: www.campus-guest.de
 

Add+it 2018

“…the essential symposium for the Additive Manufacturing community”

On 27-28 September 2018, approximately 130 international experts in the field of Additive Manufacturing will meet in Steyr, Museum Arbeitswelt. They will present and discuss current state of research, highlights and trends.The symposium aims to facilitate synergies between research and industry, to highlight the state of the art and beyond state of the art of additive manufacturing methods with the focus on polymers.

 More information: www.addit2018.org

Slovak Matchmaking Fair Nitra 2018

The Slovak Matchmaking Fair Nitra 2018 is organized by The Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency and it is an official accompanying event to the 25th International Engineering Trade Fair in Nitra, Slovakia.

The event targets organizations and companies offering or looking for new technologies, innovative tools and modern solutions for their products, services, further development and manufacturing processes. The Slovak Matchmaking Fair Nitra 2018 is an international matchmaking event focusing on bilateral negotiations between local and foreign companies with the aim to create new business relations.

Within this event there will be expert panel discussions and workshops. Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry will present the Smart Factory HUB project (SFH) - the partial results, aims of the project and the occasions for SMEs to participate in. Furthermore, they will introduce the facilitators, Smart Factory Cooperation Platform technology transfer project tool and other activities. All interested parties will be provided with consultations and detailed information about the SFH project.

Date: May 23, 2018

Venue: Agrokomplex, Nitra, Slovak Republic

More information: http://matchmakingfairnitra2018.sario.sk/

SEE MEET 2018

Pomurje Technology Park (PTP), the Lead Partner of the Smart Factory HUB project, is co-organizing an event on 26th and 27th September 2018 in Maribor (Slovenia).
The event is called SEE MEET, where ‘B2B’ meetings are ongoing, while PTP will additionally organize a conference on Industry 4.0 in order to present innovative solutions on smart factories.

Link of  SEE MEET in 2017 :http://www.seemeet.si/

Main Results of the First Year of the Project

Smart Factory Cooperation Platform

The Smart Factory Cooperation Platform (SFCP), presented by the PTP, shall support SMEs by providing a geographic overview and give some information about actors, good practices, projects and facilitators and, thus, foster the match between the demand (production/manufacturing organizations) and supply (solution providers) tendencies.
The mapping tool consists of five main panels of which some have additional four subcategories to choose from and the search bar with numerous filtering options. All of this is accompanied by the interactive map.

The Organizations panel is the first of the previously stated five. Users can lessen the inputted organizations list by selecting commands/values from four dropdown subcategories with a series of relevant options, namely Country, Market sectors, Organization type and Services provided, which allows them to perform a custom search. The Projects panel is the second of the five, the Funding schemes panel is the third, the Product and services panel is the fourth and the Facilitators panel is the fifth. Companies and other organizations can and are welcomed to register by clicking on the “Register your organization” button and filling in the requested data.

http://www.p-tech.si/sfh-mapping/

Handbook of Good Practice
 

The good practice collection activities resulted in a handbook.

The handbook was thought to be an important tool for manufacturing companies, describing “cutting-edge” technological solutions that are already used in the industry, making it easy for such companies to know about the existence of these innovative practices and provide useful information in the pre-implementation stage.

A total of 57 good practices were collected from 10 countries, and in the handbook,  they were sorted into categories, which are considered to be important from the “smart-factory” concept’s perspective. These categories include “Smart supply network”, “Cloud storage/processing”, “Cybersecurity”, “Intelligent sensors/actuator”, “Cyber physical systems”, “Intelligent products” and others, which are closely related to the “Internet-of-things” and “Industry 4.0” emerging trends. 

The good practices were also cross-referenced according to the country of application, so in each category it can be seen where the good practices originate from: Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Companies were looking forward to the completion of the handbook, expressing their interest towards it when it was under development and were very much pleased with its release in 29.12.2017, offering very positive feedback. Some are considering implementing described solutions.

Handbook:
http://dtp.interreg-danube.eu/approved-projects/smart-factory-hub/section/e-publications

Upcoming project activities

OBJECTIVE: Accelerate transnational transfer of knowledge in order to design and set-up cooperation and learning hub for technology alliances as a bridge between policy makers, companies and RD institutions.

This consists of four activities: (i) establishing a network of facilitators in each partner region and thus ensuring sustainability of the implemented scheme also after the end of the project in such a way, that the project partners find additional relevant complementary institutions in own regions that are interested to take the role of additional facilitators; (ii) developing the transfer model with curriculum and preparing the transferability guidelines tools for managing Smart Factory in innovation areas: new technologies, production processes and HRM systems; (iii) capacity building for identified facilitators network through which participants will be prepared for testing two pilot schemes through execution of the training academy in Stuttgart; (iv) identifying the smart factory innovative solutions and organization of detailed learning demonstration workshops for selected cases and interested parties.

A set of activities will result in following outputs:

• ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FACILITATOR NETWORK Establishment of a network of Facilitators, through a systematic approach of identifying and documenting facilitators that are able to bring in relevant knowledge, experience and expertise in the area of Smart manufacturing and facilitation/mentoring work.
• CAPACITY BUILDING ACADEMY; A set of “training sessions for regional facilitators” who will be trained by research partners (partner universities) to transfer the knowledge and overtake supportive services in own regions after the project closure. Facilitators will therefore stimulate mutual exchange and learning, and transnational cooperation which will help to increase skills of employees and entrepreneurs for applying novel technologies, processes & HRM system within Smart factory area contributing to respective RIS3.
• TRANSFERABILITY GUIDELINES TOOL; A set of collaborative learning tools and guides integrated in transferability tool for effective knowledge transfer that will be used during the training Academy. These sets of training materials will be used to train facilitators and SMEs in cross-topic project fields. Topics: (1) novel technologies, (2) production process control improvements and (3) HRM system, all with creation of the added value on (A) cost efficiency (B) quality assurance and (C) risk management.
• LEARNING DEMONSTRATION WORKSHOPS; There will be demonstration workshops in each region in such a way that domestic smart factory solution providers present applicative demonstration to foreign interested solution users. All project partners are involved as each partner is once a "host partner", while the task of other partners is to identify interested SMEs from their regions for participation abroad in the host region.

In the upcoming few months one of the main goals of the partnership will be:

• the implementation of e-learning platform with the training curriculum:The platform will be comprising all materials from the training academy and some additional material provided by project partners on different thematic of Industry 4.0.
• the organization of 10 Learning demonstration workshops:The other most important goal of the partnership will be the organization of the learning demonstration workshops, where 10 smart factory solutions will be presented at each of the workshop to local audience, and it will be possible to follow these workshops over live streaming.
• the organization of webinars and regional roadshows:During the webinar sessions the facilitators will be able to share and exchange knowledge on regional smart factory solutions; and in the regional roadshows partners will be able to present smart factory solutions, project platform and voucher scheme.