Manufacturing micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are creating added-value and employment in many different sectors throughout Europe. Nevertheless, EU competitiveness in global manufacturing is rapidly declining: between 2008 and 2012, 3.8 million jobs have been lost in EU’s manufacturing SMEs. For this reason, manufacturing SMEs throughout Europe need to reinforce their innovation capacity through integration and usage of key enabling technologies (KETs) with focus in clean production to reverse the currently negative trend. Clean production processes are seen as a key part of the new industrial revolution. In future, factories will use energy- and material-efficient processes, employ renewable and recycled materials and adopt sustainable business models. However, the reinforcement of KET application for cleaner production in SMEs is confronted with a number of challenges and barriers, for instance, SMEs lack knowledge of potentials and benefits, lack of access to KET infrastructures in services in many European regions and SMEs reluctance to invest in changes in production using KETs that they cannot test or fully understand.
KET4CleanProduction main objective is to foster the use of advanced manufacturing technologies and related key enabling technologies by SMEs to upgrade their production processes towards resource- and energy efficiency and sustainability. This is achieved by reaching out to manufacturing SMEs all over Europe, raise their awareness on the potential of clean production innovation for increased product quality, productivity and environmental performance and finally increase in market shares and competitiveness. To reach this, KET4CleanProduction created a one-stop-shop for a pan-European and cross-border access to innovation services for SME through a network of KET technology centres.
KET4CleanProduction addressed the current challenges of SMEs in applying new technologies for clean production through:
1. Awareness creation and stimulation of manufacturing SMEs throughout Europe to increase their understanding and interest in clean production and the potential in adopting KETs.
2. Build the KET4CleanProduction platform for Europe with specific awareness measures on regions where KET access is still not satisfactory.
3. Help SMEs benefit from multi-KET service know-how and infrastructure.
4. Unlock the cross-border service potential of EU certified KET Technology Centres on clean production services.
5. Creation of a sustainable ecosystem - A one-stop-shop acting as single access point for EU manufacturing SMEs.
6. Implement a micro-grant scheme boosting clean production in SMEs through KET applications.
7. Escalate regional smart specialisation strategies to a European level and vice versa.
KET4CleanProduction supported SMEs by operating as a bridge with KET technology providers and EEN advisors. During the project, transnational microgrant projects were succesfully carried out for the benefit of 40 SMEs. With this, the transnational collaboration among these stakeholders was tested and validated during the operation, involving a network of 30 KET Technology partners and 33 EEN organisations, by the end of the project. Moreover, the KET4CleanProduction service portfolio was developed to facilitate the technology uptake by SMEs. Also, a business plan was developed for the post-project sustainability.
