On March 12, 2018, the working group of the FORESDA pilot project "Smart Home, Smart Furniture" met for the second time to further advance the conceptual design of the planned online platform of the same name. The traditional Nagold company Häfele GmbH & Co KG once again offered an ideal platform for professional exchange.

The wood industry is special, not only in the northern Black Forest, but throughout Europe. Highly networked industrial production processes characterize the corporate landscape as well as traditional crafts. The challenges are identical, from the Black Forest to the Black Sea. The aim of FORESDA as a European funding project in the Danube Region is to promote transnational cooperation in the field of wood in order to tackle specific future issues on a transnational basis. One focus is the topic "Smart Home, Smart Furniture", which was also on the agenda of the FORESDA workshop on 12 March at Häfele. The strong trend towards individual and intelligent products in the furniture and contract furnishing industry is one of the driving forces behind digitization and networked production.

The IT sector is initially dependent on identifying the requirements profile of the wood industry and informing it about the potential and possible applications of IT solutions at process and product level. 3D printing processes or virtual reality can be used for customer-specific series production in furniture production. The product itself can be enhanced by IT technologies, for example when equipped with sensors, network connections or loading areas.

The workshop focused on the presentation of a concept for an online platform with the topics "Digitization", "New Materials" and "Innovation". The representatives of the FORESDA project Luc Schmerber from InnoAG, Dr. Ralf Trunko from Cyberforum and Anja Röllich from WFG North Black Forest presented their ideas on the design and concept of the platform and discussed contents and added value for the companies in the Northern Black Forest region to the members of the working group. "We will involve other players and companies and enable a targeted exchange of information with the online platform", Anja Röllich, who is responsible for FORESDA at the Economic Development Department of the Northern Black Forest, summarised the results of the exchange.

In keeping with the theme, Florian Ohmenhäuser, Project Manager for Smart Häfele & Digital Furniture Planning, presented the participants in the Häfele brand world with state-of-the-art solutions for smart furniture with innovative fittings technology.

If you are interested in working on the FORESDA project "Smart Home, Smart Furniture", please contact the Economic Development Department of the Northern Black Forest.

Contact person:

Claire Duval

E-mail: duval@nordschwarzwald.de

Phone: +49 (0)7231/154 36 97