Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MANU-SQUARE (MANUfacturing ecoSystem of QUAlified Resources Exchange)
Berichtszeitraum: 2019-07-01 bis 2021-06-30
MOTIVATION
Servitization trend been applied already both to consumer goods and to capital goods as companies are more and more willing to sell (and buy) manufacturing capacity instead of new equipment making the manufacturing as a service (MaaS) paradigm arise.
Yet this transformation doesn’t consider yet systemic effects, such as capacity underuse and suboptimal value networks, thus still retaining the European manufacturing system from unleashing its full potential. Also opportunities for reuse of wastes or by-products within the industrial ecosystem difficultly emerge thus limiting their enforcement.
To fully achieve the MaaS paradigm, an aggregation and information sharing point is required to give visibility to the manufacturing capacity that any company may want to make available at any location and in any particular field. In parallel, the acquisition and formalisation of the production demand is also needed to set up the counterpart for the matching and systemic optimisation. Endowing this matching marketplace with reputation mechanisms capable to raise an environment of mutually trusting partners is a key step for abating barriers to markets and to open the doors to innovative ideas who may never reach them otherwise.
The approach brought forth by the MANU-SQUARE project is key to ensure that the generation process of innovative product-services is supported by a fast and effective match of articulated demand and available supply. In fact, by exploiting the platform-enabled marketplace, technology savvy brokers have the proper visibility over system capacity and can easily arrange scope-driven value networks leveraging on the underlying aware and reactive industrial ecosystem with mutual benefits to both providers and users of manufacturing services. Sharing platforms in the manufacturing domain are becoming more and more relevant with new platforms appearing on the market by the day even though a battle for dominant position has not been settled yet.
OBJECTIVES
Objective 1 – To make European unused manufacturing capacity emerge towards its reintegration in the loop and the creation of local efficient value networks
Objective 2 – To support innovative SMEs and start-ups in finding the optimal suppliers to transform their business ideas into new product-services
Objective 3 – To seamlessly involve actors all along the entire value network including consumers for cross-fertilisation of product-service solutions and underlying technologies
Objective 4 – To coordinate the whole MANU-SQUARE ecosystem towards a better use of resources and a more sustainable European manufacturing
RESULTS ACHIEVED
A minimum viable platform (MVP) has been developed and made available to both internal and external early users for validation and it is supported by innovative platform components (e.g. matchmaking tool, reputation mechanism, blockchain-based constructs for promoting trust in supply chains, …) and by a credible business model and business plan.The enabling technologies developed in the first part of the project have been integrated into the MVP and have been continuously fine-tuned based on the feedback collected through the demonstration pilots in the silk and cosmetics sector and in the manufacturing technologies sector. An extensive dissemination plan including webinars, bilateral meetings, links with multipliers and interaction with other projects allowed to create a community of early adopters paving the way for the commercial exploitation of the platform after the end of the project.
Servitization trend been applied already both to consumer goods and to capital goods as companies are more and more willing to sell (and buy) manufacturing capacity instead of new equipment making the manufacturing as a service (MaaS) paradigm arise.
Yet this transformation doesn’t consider yet systemic effects, such as capacity underuse and suboptimal value networks, thus still retaining the European manufacturing system from unleashing its full potential. Also opportunities for reuse of wastes or by-products within the industrial ecosystem difficultly emerge thus limiting their enforcement.
To fully achieve the MaaS paradigm, an aggregation and information sharing point is required to give visibility to the manufacturing capacity that any company may want to make available at any location and in any particular field. In parallel, the acquisition and formalisation of the production demand is also needed to set up the counterpart for the matching and systemic optimisation. Endowing this matching marketplace with reputation mechanisms capable to raise an environment of mutually trusting partners is a key step for abating barriers to markets and to open the doors to innovative ideas who may never reach them otherwise.
The approach brought forth by the MANU-SQUARE project is key to ensure that the generation process of innovative product-services is supported by a fast and effective match of articulated demand and available supply. In fact, by exploiting the platform-enabled marketplace, technology savvy brokers have the proper visibility over system capacity and can easily arrange scope-driven value networks leveraging on the underlying aware and reactive industrial ecosystem with mutual benefits to both providers and users of manufacturing services. Sharing platforms in the manufacturing domain are becoming more and more relevant with new platforms appearing on the market by the day even though a battle for dominant position has not been settled yet.
OBJECTIVES
Objective 1 – To make European unused manufacturing capacity emerge towards its reintegration in the loop and the creation of local efficient value networks
Objective 2 – To support innovative SMEs and start-ups in finding the optimal suppliers to transform their business ideas into new product-services
Objective 3 – To seamlessly involve actors all along the entire value network including consumers for cross-fertilisation of product-service solutions and underlying technologies
Objective 4 – To coordinate the whole MANU-SQUARE ecosystem towards a better use of resources and a more sustainable European manufacturing
RESULTS ACHIEVED
A minimum viable platform (MVP) has been developed and made available to both internal and external early users for validation and it is supported by innovative platform components (e.g. matchmaking tool, reputation mechanism, blockchain-based constructs for promoting trust in supply chains, …) and by a credible business model and business plan.The enabling technologies developed in the first part of the project have been integrated into the MVP and have been continuously fine-tuned based on the feedback collected through the demonstration pilots in the silk and cosmetics sector and in the manufacturing technologies sector. An extensive dissemination plan including webinars, bilateral meetings, links with multipliers and interaction with other projects allowed to create a community of early adopters paving the way for the commercial exploitation of the platform after the end of the project.
WP1 - A stakeholder analysis has been carried out involving internal and external potential users to early figure out their needs and interest. A specifications map has been drawn as a first step to identify platform functionalities, group them into service packages and define software tools that support them. Demonstration scenarios have been outlined for the involved pilots. All these results have been converted into the MANU-SQUARE reference framework.
WP2 - A semantic representation management of the MANU-SQUARE ecosystem has been designed and implemented building on its elementary blocks. Starting from a meta-model containing the elementary propositions that generalise the key abstract concepts, sectorial domain ontologies have been created by capturing end-users knowledge. Context-specific models capable to support tool functionalities have been created. Finally inference rules working on the ontology have been developed in a reasoning system.
WP3 - A blockchain infrastructure for supporting the platform functionalities has been developed. This allows to 1- enrich and feed the platform also with data from IoT devices so supporting tracking of resources along the value network, 2- track transaction that occur on the platform so supporting the reputation mechanism and creating a factual basis for disputes resolution. Moreover, the main platform graphical user interfaces have been designed and implemented towards the release of a minimum viable platform.
WP4 - Platform tools have been designed, developed and integrated into the MVP. They are: match making service for connecting demand and supply; a reputation mechanism for mutual trust between platform users; sustainability assessment layer for attaching environmental impacts to the platform transactions enriched with a unified flow manager for ecosystem orchestration; an idea manager for promoting open innovation on the platform.
WP5 - A BPMN depicting the overall behavior of the platform has been modeled. Service canvas and blueprints have been created before implementing the platform design toolkit to develop the multi-sided platform business model. The economic viability of the platform has been assessed developing an implementation roadmap based on a business plan-like structure. The work was completed with a risk analysis and the development of an evaluation framework for the platform business.
WP6 - Two demonstration scenarios have been deployed showing the potential of the MANU-SQUARE platform to support business processes. In both sectors, namely silk and cosmetics and manufacturing technologies, the pilots took place with some promising results. Feedback was also provided to improve the platform and its services.
WP7 - An exploitation strategy has been developed for both the single components and for the platform as a whole. Thanks to a rich plan of dissemination actions, including webinars to present the platform services, a community of early adopters was created around the platform.
WP2 - A semantic representation management of the MANU-SQUARE ecosystem has been designed and implemented building on its elementary blocks. Starting from a meta-model containing the elementary propositions that generalise the key abstract concepts, sectorial domain ontologies have been created by capturing end-users knowledge. Context-specific models capable to support tool functionalities have been created. Finally inference rules working on the ontology have been developed in a reasoning system.
WP3 - A blockchain infrastructure for supporting the platform functionalities has been developed. This allows to 1- enrich and feed the platform also with data from IoT devices so supporting tracking of resources along the value network, 2- track transaction that occur on the platform so supporting the reputation mechanism and creating a factual basis for disputes resolution. Moreover, the main platform graphical user interfaces have been designed and implemented towards the release of a minimum viable platform.
WP4 - Platform tools have been designed, developed and integrated into the MVP. They are: match making service for connecting demand and supply; a reputation mechanism for mutual trust between platform users; sustainability assessment layer for attaching environmental impacts to the platform transactions enriched with a unified flow manager for ecosystem orchestration; an idea manager for promoting open innovation on the platform.
WP5 - A BPMN depicting the overall behavior of the platform has been modeled. Service canvas and blueprints have been created before implementing the platform design toolkit to develop the multi-sided platform business model. The economic viability of the platform has been assessed developing an implementation roadmap based on a business plan-like structure. The work was completed with a risk analysis and the development of an evaluation framework for the platform business.
WP6 - Two demonstration scenarios have been deployed showing the potential of the MANU-SQUARE platform to support business processes. In both sectors, namely silk and cosmetics and manufacturing technologies, the pilots took place with some promising results. Feedback was also provided to improve the platform and its services.
WP7 - An exploitation strategy has been developed for both the single components and for the platform as a whole. Thanks to a rich plan of dissemination actions, including webinars to present the platform services, a community of early adopters was created around the platform.
All tools present an advancement to the state of the art with a particular emphasis on the matchmaking tool based on semantic similarity concept, the reputation mechanism which incorporates blockchain-based constructs to track unambiguously relevant transactions on the platform, sustainability assessment tool that extends the measurement concept to the supply chain level.
The minimum viable platform used in the validation activities has generated a great interest for local cluster of manufacturing companies, especially SMEs, showing the potential to reinforce the industrial fabric at local level with the prospect of retaining jobs close to communities. The efficiency brought by the platform in the reintroduction of resources into the loop provides many savings in terms of reduced costs, reduced time and increased usage of resources as shown and demonstrated during the industrial validation activities.
The minimum viable platform used in the validation activities has generated a great interest for local cluster of manufacturing companies, especially SMEs, showing the potential to reinforce the industrial fabric at local level with the prospect of retaining jobs close to communities. The efficiency brought by the platform in the reintroduction of resources into the loop provides many savings in terms of reduced costs, reduced time and increased usage of resources as shown and demonstrated during the industrial validation activities.