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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - EuroCPS (European Network of competencies and platforms for Enabling SME from any sector building Innovative CPS products to sustain demand for European manufacturing)

Teaser

Summary

EuroCPS aims to arm Europe with a network of Competence Centres (CC) in order to initiate and boost synergies between SMEs, major CPS PlatForms (PFs), and CPS competency providers to capture the emerging CPS markets and create sustained demand for European manufacturing. EuroCPS goals are : 1) Bring innovative CPS to business from any sectors within the help of networking partners, 2) Link user and supplier across value-chains and region within the help of CC partners (coaching, development plan definition, service providers), 3) Fund, manage and monitor selected Industrial Experiments (IE) by Cascade Funding (CF) partners coming from R&D centres and RTOs.
To that end, EuroCPS CC act as one-stop-shop providing technical expertise, coaching and access to advanced industrial PFs, getting SMEs up to speed on the innovation ecosystem of CPS products by facilitating access to leading edge technologies and their implementation. In the process, CC tap existing regional ecosystems in several countries to bring the full value chain from HW/SW PFs to high value-added CPS products and services.
To demonstrate this new cooperation model, EuroCPS supports and funds IEs considering excellence, impact on ecosystem and industrialization/implementation possibility and prospects via 3 open calls. Initial targets are 30 granted IEs for developing innovative CPS products leading to 8 success stories with short path to market. The 14 EuroCPS partners are major European system suppliers, world-class R&D centres and technology providers.
EuroCPS has been key in the establishment of the initial network of CC acting as one-stop-shop services for innovative companies interested in experimenting with digital technologies to be incorporated into their products. An agile tailored tool was developed through open call process and CF approach in order to attract SMEs, relying on 3 pillars: 1) easy access, 2) focussed funding, 3) technical knowledge. Besides technical aspects and â€œbusiness developmentâ€ like support, EuroCPS enables a more tailored access to European funding for SMEs, by providing lightweight and focused funding and services with manageable project size and administrative overhead.
EuroCPS approach is well appreciated by the SMEs: day-to-day support, support in terms of dissemination, outcomes promotions. It provides a unique opportunity for SMEs to initiate collaboration with European big players, very often continuing beyond EuroCPS.
EuroCPS plays the leverage effect for SMEs to join other National/European programs.
EuroCPS was key element (with gateone and CPSELabs) of FED4SAE launched in September 2017.

Work performed

EuroCPS first 2 years focused on: Foster EuroCPS over Europe (Website, flyers, Press releases, Workshops, Events); Set-up of the essential tools: legal contract with SME, CF management procedure, IE dedicated processes (selection, monitoring, evaluation); open calls organization; launch and monitor 34 selected IEs, disseminate the first results, Evaluate the interest of this new cooperation model, Communicate about EuroCPS and SAE.
EuroCPS 3rd year focused on: Monitor all granted IEs to successfully ending on time, ensure the good management of CF, actively disseminate and promote EuroCPS outcomes, IE showcases and SAE initiative. The consortium continued to promote EuroCPS outcomes by implementing strategies at both National and European level within SAE, organized specific events to disseminate the results obtained by the funded SME and set-up the Business Coaching Event, 22 success stories writing and contribution to SAE brochure, set-up videos to promote EuroCPS and IEs outcomes on website, evaluate EuroCPS impact on the SMEs and the project beneficiaries, tackle the question of DIH sustainability approach.
EuroCPS results exceed the initial targets: >6 000 SMEs aware of EuroCPS, >150 SMEs interested in a project, 118 IEs submitted and 34 granted IEs all completed with more than 95% reaching their technical target, EuroCPS partners involved in more than 2 IEs, all project types covered, 82% of cross-border IEs, 2 funded SMEs from countries outside of EuroCPS and large coverage of application domains: smart cities /health/agriculture/mobility/factory, IoT protocol.
Analysis of granted IE outcomes shows that IEs allow SMEs to reach major breakthrough in their technology maturity gain, enable them to develop demonstrator/proof-of-concept with insight about the path towards final product. The demonstrators give SMEâ€™s arguments to raise additional funding or engage into longer term technical collaborations. SME business plans are strengthened and rigorously reinforces the roadmap of the SMEs.

Final results

* Attractiveness for SMEs of the proposed CC model combined with financial support: 118 submissions of high quality, even distribution among the 3 kinds of projects over the 34 selected IEs.
* Efficiency of the model to build on open tools, PFs and standards by allowing to build a tight, active and collaborative consortium, to easily submit a proposal (5 weeks) with fast acceptance notification (7 weeks) thanks to a tailored selection process and launch of IE in short time (dedicated contract).
* Capacity to initiate and boost synergies between SMEs, technology supplier and CC inside and outside their region or traditional market place: more than 80% of the submitted IEs are cross-border and 2 IEs comes from European countries outside of EuroCPS.
* Close collaboration with RTOs and industrial partners shows that IEs allowed SMEs to reach major progress in their technology development and enabled them to efficiently develop demonstrators. The achieved demonstrators enable a diffusion of the SME technology to prospects. SME business plans are also reinforced.
* Intensity of the interaction between SME and PF providers showed a wide range, depending on the PFs and the SMEs. Once a relation between the SME and the PF provider is established, the support of the platform provider usually goes ways beyond technical assistance on the PF alone but also included business development and market opportunities.
* RTOs and R&D centres have created new collaboration links with the industrial world at regional, National and European level, enabling further applied research in the field of CPS and embedded systems, training of PhD students, leading to very active dissemination activities, as well as IPR protection of the most promising ideas. RTOs and R&D centres learnt to adjust their dynamic and act swiftly, to be in line with the IEs timelife.
* Creation of 103 new jobs up to 2018 (35% growth per year) and further constant growth expected for the next years (200 new job creation are forecast until 2020); In terms of revenues, generation of 10 Mâ‚¬ additional revenues up to 2018 and exponential growth planned for the next coming years mainly in small SMEs (27 Mâ‚¬ up to 2019).
* Example of impacts regarding IEs outcomes societal implication in terms of environment, energy saving, health service quality: reduce pesticide application by 35% and irrigation-water consumption by 50%, increase the protection against Legionella bacteria in shower facilities in gyms and larger sports at lower cost of ownership, improve building energy efficiency, lower energy bills and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.