Periodic Reporting for period 4 - EPIC (Centre of Excellence in Production Informatics and Control)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-01-01 al 2022-06-30
The main strategic objectives of EPIC CoE are to:
• Initiate and accelerate focused basic research excellence, and application-oriented development;
• Raise the scientific profile and soft skill base of staff and institutions involved in seven selected Priority Research Fields (PRF) and several Complementary Skills;
• Attract international talents and also enable industry talents to enter into academia and vice versa;
• Significantly improve technology transfer and industry innovation in Hungary;
• Intrinsically and sustainably impact on the development of education and training programs for engineers and researchers in the field of CPP;
• Develop and shape a regional CPPS ecosystem by stimulating and strengthening triple-helix (industry & regional clusters – academia & university - government) relationships;
• Promote and enable new international collaborations;
• Contribute to better public understanding of science and scientific literacy;
• Create new opportunities for Hungarian SMEs by facilitating their participation in research projects and thus develop their innovation capabilities;
• Launch cooperative, customer centered value creation processes.
• The COVID situation generated the need for a much more intensive coordination, and for a number of events to be either moved online or be postponed to a later date. Face-to-face on-site staff visits, or company visits were not possible after March. Also, people needed to acquire new complementary skills, such as getting familiar with different online communication tools (e.g.: Teams, Webex, Zoom, Gotomeeting, google hangouts, GoogleMeet). On the positive side though, we were able to have a much larger number of virtual encounters (e.g.: online trainings, workshops etc.) involving a higher number of participants, and even get involved in new industry alliances that have formed because of the international pandemic situation (e.g.: DigiLean Competence HUB).
• 49 more staff visits / thematic exchange meetings were organised.
• 13 more scientific/complementary skills trainings (e.g.: Training on Value Stream Design; Production Logistics; Factory Planning; Digitalization and New Technology Trends; Creating Value with Big Data; Digital Communication and Media Management; New Economic Views; Data Driven Business Models; Simulation in production; Defining and executing industry-initiated projects; EC Audit and Reporting; Horizon Europe; Creativity, Innovation and Digitalization) were accomplished.
• EPIC InnoLabs is growing in the planned rhythm, there is no deviation from the initial plan.
• Further standardized and improved industrial technology transfer processes and obtaining of the ISO9001:2015 certificate at EPIC InnoLabs is to be noted as well.
• 57 scientific articles, 4 industrial publications and 1 new journal special issue editing.
• 14 EPIC organised/co-organised thematic events and 37 conference participations.
• A catalogue of 27 advanced training courses for the EPIC consortia was elaborated, representing in particular services for customers of EPIC Innolabs Ltd. on the technology fields Digital Factory and PPC.
• 32 strategic cooperation projects with 19 industrial partners have been initiated.
• A Digital Learning CPPS toolbox for project acquisition has been established.
• Cooperation with industry continued, (34) workshops and events were organised.
• 49 partnership building workshops were held.
• An interactive map for the EPIC pilot CPPS network has been published.
• The first jointly developed and implemented “Digital Assistance Systeme as a Service” use-case, was implemented in Győr and Vienna.
• Strong media presence via: 33 new press releases taken over by about 100 media outlets, 3 EPIC InnoLabs digital newsletters, web-sites, leaflets, LinkedIn, television interviews, YouTube Channel, EPIC Flipboard Magazine.
• Significant overpass of Scientific KPIs:
• 49 scientific articles,
• 18 conference participations,
• 2 industrial publications,
• 12 EPIC organised / co-organised thematic events.
• Extensive improvement in the communication output with special focus on the social media channels, as recommended by the project reviewers.
• Successful completion of 1st complementary funding R&D project and running the 2nd complementary funding project without issues.
• 55 strategic cooperation projects have been initiated.
• 69 staff visits/thematic exchange meetings.
• 45 scientific/complementary skills training sessions.
• Industrial cooperation projects directly originated from or by using the EPIC cyber-physical demonstration environments have been conducted.
• Infrastructure in the EPIC pilot factory network were used to provide realistic use case scenarios for during the EPIC Summer School.
• The pilot factory of the Vienna University of Technology was digitally mapped with several use cases and integrated into a virtual tour in FutureWork360.
• A catalogue of 27 advanced training courses was developed (Digital Factory and PPC) and four iAcademy Apps have already been introduced.
• Relevant teaching material for university students on Cyber-Physical Systems at BSc level and Cyber-Physical Production Systems at MSc level were developed
• Growth of the EPIC Innolabs as per original schedule.
• Many joint project proposals as a means of future sustainability were initiated.