Periodic Reporting for period 3 - Better Factory (Grow your manufacturing business)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-04-01 do 2024-09-30
During last century, the investments in automation focused on optimising resources and costs and converging towards ever more Lean Production. Due to volatile changes in the business environment manufacturers started to look for more agility in their factories. In last decades, a significant public and private investment has been made in the development of several enabling technologies for Agile Production. Today, many products can be personalized to the very last detail for individual customers on the same production line with no impact on the production cost. However, for Manufacturing SMEs to adopt optimal Lean‐Agile Production and enter the market with new or personalized product and services, they face several challenges.
Better Factory aimed to answer to 4 challenges:
#1: Creativity Challenge - Before adopting new business models and investing into factories for new or personalized products, SMEs need to reinvent their products for customization, around the core value proposition of the product and around the core knowledge of the SME.
#2: Lean-Agile Challenge - To produce batches of new and personalized products, alongside existing products SMEs will require more from their factories. Factories will need to operate as fully connected Lean‐Agile cyber‐physical‐systems, minimizing the use of resources, and simultaneously reconfiguring Human‐Robot‐Interaction while keeping the constraints on quality, delivery, time, etc.
#3: Investment Challenge - Arts drive science and science drive arts and a combination of these drive innovation. The artists can spur new innovations on the path to digital transformation with manufacturing SMEs, as well as explore new horizons with Technology suppliers. Yet, full exploitation of these unpredictable innovations will rely on the access to finance.
#4: Skills Challenge - Transformation process of a conventional factory requires transformation of organisational design and enterprise architecture that embrace convergence of multiple advance technologies. This requires strategic thinking, simulation, planning and re‐skilling.
Better Factory invited Small and Medium-sized Manufacturers (SMEs) to redesign their current production and product portfolio together with Artists and Technology suppliers in 16 months Knowledge Transfer Experiments (KTE). Manufacturers taped into disruptive product innovation that responds to new market demands while keeping production resources optimal with RAMP IoT platform. It helped manufacturers to enter new markets with customizable, personalized product or service portfolio. Together the members of sixteen Knowledge Transfer Experiments discovered new business models and digitalised their factories to match the production of new or personalized products. All in all, 48 companies developed and tested 50 new technical and artistic solutions and planned for their commercial exploitation after the project.
RAMP (Robotics Automation Marketplace) is a free and open marketplace and IoT platform running on state of the art servers, with access to cloud storage and computing, enabling connection with robots, sensors, cameras, AR/VR and other equipment. RAMP provides a 3D simulation tool to create Digital Twin for virtual testing, co-creation space for teams to collaborate online among other digital services. Managed by European Dynamics, RAMP continues to run also after the project.
Better Factory provides an Open and Standardized Advance Production Planning and Scheduling (APPS) system for manufacturers to test commercial tools to optimize waste, energy, resources and logistic. The Better Factory originally developed 10 APPS tools. These were tested and integrated in the solutions developed in the Knowledge transfer experiments. An additional 10 APPS were developed by the KTEs
Better Factory aimed to answer to 4 challenges:
#1: Creativity Challenge - Before adopting new business models and investing into factories for new or personalized products, SMEs need to reinvent their products for customization, around the core value proposition of the product and around the core knowledge of the SME.
#2: Lean-Agile Challenge - To produce batches of new and personalized products, alongside existing products SMEs will require more from their factories. Factories will need to operate as fully connected Lean‐Agile cyber‐physical‐systems, minimizing the use of resources, and simultaneously reconfiguring Human‐Robot‐Interaction while keeping the constraints on quality, delivery, time, etc.
#3: Investment Challenge - Arts drive science and science drive arts and a combination of these drive innovation. The artists can spur new innovations on the path to digital transformation with manufacturing SMEs, as well as explore new horizons with Technology suppliers. Yet, full exploitation of these unpredictable innovations will rely on the access to finance.
#4: Skills Challenge - Transformation process of a conventional factory requires transformation of organisational design and enterprise architecture that embrace convergence of multiple advance technologies. This requires strategic thinking, simulation, planning and re‐skilling.
Better Factory invited Small and Medium-sized Manufacturers (SMEs) to redesign their current production and product portfolio together with Artists and Technology suppliers in 16 months Knowledge Transfer Experiments (KTE). Manufacturers taped into disruptive product innovation that responds to new market demands while keeping production resources optimal with RAMP IoT platform. It helped manufacturers to enter new markets with customizable, personalized product or service portfolio. Together the members of sixteen Knowledge Transfer Experiments discovered new business models and digitalised their factories to match the production of new or personalized products. All in all, 48 companies developed and tested 50 new technical and artistic solutions and planned for their commercial exploitation after the project.
RAMP (Robotics Automation Marketplace) is a free and open marketplace and IoT platform running on state of the art servers, with access to cloud storage and computing, enabling connection with robots, sensors, cameras, AR/VR and other equipment. RAMP provides a 3D simulation tool to create Digital Twin for virtual testing, co-creation space for teams to collaborate online among other digital services. Managed by European Dynamics, RAMP continues to run also after the project.
Better Factory provides an Open and Standardized Advance Production Planning and Scheduling (APPS) system for manufacturers to test commercial tools to optimize waste, energy, resources and logistic. The Better Factory originally developed 10 APPS tools. These were tested and integrated in the solutions developed in the Knowledge transfer experiments. An additional 10 APPS were developed by the KTEs
Better Factory project invited manufacturing SMEs, technology suppliers and artist to work together in a Knowledge Transfer Experiment (KTE). Sixteen KTEs were implemented including 48 partners through cascade funding (FSTP). Each experiment lasted 16 months and resulted in concrete new solutions for all involved parties. Typically the outputs of the experiments consisted of new digital solution, reuse of material and/or new designs for the products and processes in the manufacturing SME, while at the same time the technology providers tested out new product solutions and the artists found new ways of utilizing their skills. The artists also created a wide range of art works.
Together the sixteen KTEs created 47 concrete outputs, but as several of these outputs provide two or even three of the KTE members opportunities to improve their commercial activities through improved processes or new products, the resulting impact of the KTEs is significant.
New versions of RAMP Marketplace and RAMP IoT platform were developed and tested in the KTEs. Version 3 of RAMP received positive feedback regarding the ease of use and updated functionality from the KTEs. The RAMP business model was updated to meet the concrete needs of the RAMP network including manufacturing SMEs, technology providers, artists, RTOs and universities. European Dynamics will continue to develop RAMP after the end of the Better Factory project.
The mentoring and management method used in Better Factory KTEs was documented as the Better Factory Method in the Artist+SME Toolkit. This is offered as a business model for DIHs and Cluster in Europe.
Together the sixteen KTEs created 47 concrete outputs, but as several of these outputs provide two or even three of the KTE members opportunities to improve their commercial activities through improved processes or new products, the resulting impact of the KTEs is significant.
New versions of RAMP Marketplace and RAMP IoT platform were developed and tested in the KTEs. Version 3 of RAMP received positive feedback regarding the ease of use and updated functionality from the KTEs. The RAMP business model was updated to meet the concrete needs of the RAMP network including manufacturing SMEs, technology providers, artists, RTOs and universities. European Dynamics will continue to develop RAMP after the end of the Better Factory project.
The mentoring and management method used in Better Factory KTEs was documented as the Better Factory Method in the Artist+SME Toolkit. This is offered as a business model for DIHs and Cluster in Europe.
Better Factory created results beyond the state of the art by utilizing and further developing the RAMP platform and IoT platform that was originally created in the project L4MS. Sustainable way of continuously developing a Marketplace in a series of projects is a novel way of understanding the sustainability of technology and business.
The Knowledge Transfer Experiments in the Better Factory project created a wide range of concrete outputs for the participants. For instance, all KTEs developed and tested IoT solutions based on the RAMP IoT platform and dashboard, eight of the KTEs developed new solutions to enable the use of cobots in their production. All in all, 47 outputs including 10 new APPS, 19 innovations for further development and commercialization, and 9 works of art. All members of the KTEs prepared plans for commercial exploitation of these outputs.
The Better Factory Method used by the Better Factory mentors in the KTEs was seen as a central tool for success in the experiments. This method has been documented and is available through the Better Factory web page and the S+T+ARTS web page after the project. This gives European clusters and DIHs a platform for organizing art driven innovation activities in their regions and networks. The booklet is found here: https://betterfactory.eu/new-sme-artist-collaboration-guide-launched-by-better-factory-to-transform-european-manufacturing/(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie)
The Knowledge Transfer Experiments in the Better Factory project created a wide range of concrete outputs for the participants. For instance, all KTEs developed and tested IoT solutions based on the RAMP IoT platform and dashboard, eight of the KTEs developed new solutions to enable the use of cobots in their production. All in all, 47 outputs including 10 new APPS, 19 innovations for further development and commercialization, and 9 works of art. All members of the KTEs prepared plans for commercial exploitation of these outputs.
The Better Factory Method used by the Better Factory mentors in the KTEs was seen as a central tool for success in the experiments. This method has been documented and is available through the Better Factory web page and the S+T+ARTS web page after the project. This gives European clusters and DIHs a platform for organizing art driven innovation activities in their regions and networks. The booklet is found here: https://betterfactory.eu/new-sme-artist-collaboration-guide-launched-by-better-factory-to-transform-european-manufacturing/(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie)