”When you reduce the cost of failure, you see a big eruption of innovation” (Gary Hauthier)

This quote describes well the Smart Factory HUB project. 
Within 3 years the partnership of the project saw many-many  technological solutions related to Industry 4.0. And had a chance to know more about smart manufacturing and digitalization. 
In the framework of the Final Conference of the project, the partners would like to share their experiences that is why they invited  experts from the field of Industry 4.0 and digitalization to present  innovative solutions all around the Danube Region . 

The final Conference had 3 main Panel: 
Panel 1: Smart Factory HUB success Story
Panel 2: Importance of Digital Innovation Hubs in digital transformation 
Panel 3: Future funding support systems and opportunities

(If you would like to see The presentations of the Final conference click here.)

In the Panel 1 after the opening speech of Marius Valentin Niculae – project officer, Danube Transnational Programme , Daniel Copot – Promurje Technology Park – presented the main results of the Smart Factory HUB project. 

The following numbers describes well the success of the project :
-    261 SMEs interviewed
-    58 good practices collected
-    33 facilitators involved
-    12 training modules and e-learning platform developed
-    105 Smart Factory Solutions identified and promoted through a catalogue
-    9 Learning Demonstrational Workshop organized to promote Smart Factory Solutions 
-    44 regional workshops organized in 10 countries.
-    23 transnational vouchers supported

Then Renata Csabai – Pannon Business Network – showed a video what the project provided humanly and professionally to the partners. 

Also in Panel 1 Robin Mitana – SIDAT Digital & Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry-  and Marek Bureš – University of West Bohemia – presented success stories from Danube countries. Robin Mitana presented a feasibility study  connected to the digital twinning , and Maerk Bureš presented  several Transfer Lab pilots namely: Baumruk & Baumruk, AIR POWER , RECAR PROFI, and Elkamet .

Radu Petruse & Ioan-Alexandru Gaurus - Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu & Maier Werkzeugmaschinen – shared their point of view about augmented reality applications. 

The last presenter of the Panel 1 was Daniela Chiran - Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum/Steinbeis 2i – described the importance of the capitalization in the Thematic Pole 1.

The first presentation of Panel 2 was a video presentation by Andrea Halmos - European Commission - DG CONNECT -  she described the importance of DIHs at the European level. 

The regional aspects of the importance of DIHs presented by Dr. Christine Koppenhöfer – Priority Area 8 of the EUSDR, WG Digital Danube, Reutlingen University.  Related to the Digital maturity in Danube Region she said that the main challenge is how to transform and guide SME through Digital Transformation processes.  She mentioned a Hungarian example as  a Sectoral Focused DIH . 

This Sectoral Focused DIH called am-LAB presented by Balázs Barta- Pannon Business Network. Barta Balázs provided insight to the results and solutions of am-LAB and also mentioned the importance of Smart Factory HUB , which made it possible to learn  and know more about  Industry 4.0 solutions. 

Peter Statev – ICT Cluster – presented a Bulgarian success story and also mention the framework conditions for the future of the European economy and described what should have to do in EU and national level. 

The Slovenian success story outlined by Marko Močnik – Pomurje Technology Park – and he mentioned DIH2   which is a Pan-European Network of Robotics DIHs for Agile Production.

Next to the Slovenian, Bulgarian and Hungarian success stories Roland Sommer - Association Industry 4.0 Austria – the Platform for Smart Production – introduced Platform Industry 4.0 Austria. 
He said that: The Platform considers Industry 4.0 a societal challenge that can only be addressed by collaboration of industry, science, regional and national policy makers, associations trade unions and NGOs. 

The main theme of the last panel was: “Future funding support systems and opportunities.”

Within this topic George Čufer – DG REGION- displayed the funding possibilities through European Structural and investment funds in the 2021 -2027 period.

Ali Muhammad – VTT TECHNICAL RESEARCH CENTRE OF FINLAND LTD- , Susanne Kuehrer – EIT Digital IVZW – and Dr. Katalin Kovács – Innomine Group Ltd. – outlined the different aspects of the cascade funding Horizon 2020 projects.
Ali Muhahmad  is the coordinator of Logistics for Manufacturing SMEs,(L4MS) targeted to bring flexible and cost-effective logistics automation solutions for SMEs that is why within his presentation he mentioned the criteria of the next open call in the framework of L4MS.

Susanne Kuehrer mentioned  another open call which targets the development of data driven applications, preferably by IT SMEs as technology providers, and experiments in CPS/IoT preferably by Manufacturing SMEs.

Dr. Katalin Kovács mentioned the second open call related to Cloudifacturing and described what are the requirements for someone to apply. 

The last presenter of the day was Marko Hren  - Government office for Development and European Cohesion Policy -  presented in more detail the Slovenian Smart Specialization Strategy (S4) and the funding possibilities too. 

From the above mentioned presenters some of them presented their solutions too that is the reason why the participants had a chance to try out the possibilities of a HoloLens and the could also see a collaborative robot during operation.