Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AIM (Advanced Manufacturing Ecosystem improvement)
Teaser
Advanced Manufacturing technologies (AMTs) are one of the pillars of the so called “Fourth Industrial Revolutionâ€, which is a transformation that makes possible to gather and analyse data across machines enabling faster and more efficient production processes. AMTs are...
Summary
Advanced Manufacturing technologies (AMTs) are one of the pillars of the so called “Fourth Industrial Revolutionâ€, which is a transformation that makes possible to gather and analyse data across machines enabling faster and more efficient production processes. AMTs are key to industrial competitiveness, growth and job creation in Europe as far as these technologies are included in all production activities applying cutting-edge knowledge and/or non-technological innovation leading to improvements of existing products, processes and business models and to the production and diffusion of new ones. Nowadays companies adopt AMT to reduce production costs, improve the quality of their products and services, improve their employees’ productivity and reduce production lead-time. In fact, in a short-medium term, the progressive introduction of AMT is expected to deeply shake the traditional production system: those SMEs that will be able to uptake and integrate AMTs in their value chain may gain a considerable competitive advantage in the future. Nevertheless, Eu companies seems to be still far away from a full uptaking of these technologies. There are many and different reason to explain these, from the high investments cost to the lack of awareness and information, from the need of upskilling workforce to the general weakness of technology transfer and business support system. The AIM consortium has identified the need of strengthening of the ecosystem that revolves around AMT as one of the cornerstones to foster a wide and deep spread of these technologies at SMEs level.
AIM project overall objective is to find out which are the main elements for designing an efficient and customer-oriented supporting ecosystem for Advanced Manufacturing technologies. The aim is to reinforce and taking advantage from existing innovation infrastructures that should provide an integrated support to manufacturing SME in the technological upgrade/transfromation. The project aims at sharing and exchanging knowledge, experiences, good practices and know-how, for mutual learning purposes to strengthen specialized capacities of the innovation agencies’ staff that is beneficial for all participants.
Work performed
With the aim of mutually exchange best practices, approaches and methodologies on the topic of SME support for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies uptake, the project partners organized 2 peer learning workshop with the support of an expert with knowledge on Twinning Advanced Methodology (Twinning+); this methodology has the potential of bringing many benefits to the participants by giving them the opportunity to share problems, exchange knowledge and understand different viewpoints. The peer learning activity has been addressed to drafting of a Design Option Paper, a common document that identifies the knowledge baseline, existing options, guidelines and implementation alternatives that AIM partners have experienced and would recommend to other agencies interested in implementing the proposed best practice. The peer learning activity have been delivered through the organization of tow meetings (in Graz and in Udine) and by a continuos exchange of views and an internal debate of the consortium. In parallel, dissemination activities have been organized with a twofold objective: on the one hand to provide an awareness activity addressing local SMEs that have been introduced to the main issues of latest advanced manufacturing technologies. On the other, PPs had the chance to get in touch with key stakeholders and getting a clear feeling of businesses needs. The dissemination activities have been quite intensive and has been welcomed by the participants: 146 people attended (the majority of them SMEs, 107) the 6 events organized by the partners (3 open days, 3 workshop). The events organized, during which participants had the chance to get technical information about AMTs, as well as discussing of the business potential for their productive systems, showed the high interest of companies toward this topic and the great need of specific, customised support services.
A pilot action has been delivered to support the Design Option Paper drafting. Scope of the pilot action was to verify “on the field†the companies’ point of view for what advanced manufacturing technologies are concerned. The scope is to be in touch with real industries and get from them a clear picture (not theoretical or even top-down) of what really means advanced manufacturing for small and medium enterprises in order to analyze strengths, weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats affecting the companies’ transformation and technology transfer. The pilot action was carried out through company visits and in the form of interviews ad companies have been asked to provide their suggestion on how to improve the range, quality and type of services related to the technology transfer offered by BSOs and RTOs. A total of 16 companies have been involved by the means of bilateral meeting and door-to-door interviews. The companies have been identified by narrowing the choice among them that are showing a specific interest in an advanced manufacturing technology and/o rare currently using it in their productive systems. The focus has been made on Additive manufacturing, Robotics and Automatization, Surface Technologies and Advanced Materials.
Main findings of Pilot Action have been then used for drawing out conclusion of the design option paper. The document is the results of a joint work delivered by all Project consortium partners with the support of the facilitator.
A final event has been organized in Udine in October to set out financing opportunities on advanced manufacturing mainly coming from H2020 work programme.
Final results
The AIM project provided important insights into the manufacturing companies needs and about the potential impact of new technologies on supply chains. The high participation in dissemination activities, especially by SMEs, has confirmed the need to ensure a facilitated access to digital technologies through demonstrative initiatives, visits to the laboratories and provision of targeted consultancy services. The Advanced Manufacturing technologies may be key to the competitiveness of companies, but the role of intermediaries is essential. As the AMT assessment demonstrates, companies are asking for a greater support by technology parks and BSOs in providing higher quality services tailored to their needs. A structured ecosystem working as a “one-stop-shop†where to find relevant information, access to technology facilities and services is essential to trigger a radical transformative process toward Industry 4.0 paradigm.
During the project implementation some initiatives have been organized (as Open Days, periodical meetings with companies to assess needs and offer collaborative schemes) that will be further replicated in the future. Moreover, in Friuli Venezia Giulia region, the Regional Innovation Hub model took its first steps thanks to the launch of the Additive Manufacturing laboratory. It’s expected therefore a significant increase of competences on AMT as well as an improvement of the quality of services to be provided, new start-up and a better knowledge of main technological and industrial trends.