November 30, 2017

ESR Sunida Tiwong from CMU at TUKE

On November 30th early-stage reasearcher Sunida Tiwong from the University of Chiang Mai, currently seconding at TU Kosice led a set of interactive lessons with students of the Faculty of Manufacturing Technologies (TUKE). During this session, she introduced the project focus, current project consortium and presented the main barriers of todays SMEs all over the world in implementing the Industry 4.0 concepts. Through the discussion with students she obtained important insight into the barriers of SMEs in Slovakia.

November 28, 2017

Company Visits by researchers of WPI and unibz
In November several SME companies (participants of the SME Workshop at WPI) were visited by the research team of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the Free University of Bolzano. The company visits support the research team to get a better understanding of their practical needs to implement Industry 4.0 technologies. After a first visit of the production processes first hypothesis regarding optimizations and opportunities for automation and digitization were elaborated together with the management of the companies. In addition, a first prototype of an Industry 4.0 assessment tool was tested to have a better overview of existing Industry 4.0 concepts and their applicability and importance in the individual companies.

November 24, 2017

Two ESRs Jakub Sopko and Leos Safar from TUKE on a secondment at SACS Eng. Coll.
SACS Engineering College (India) hosts two early stage researchers (ESRs) from TUKE - Leos Safar and Jakub Sopko. As this is the first project secondment at the partner institution, the ESRs introduced the project aims to the staff of Engineering college. A visit of local SMEs will follow, to see the importance of automation and digitization in line with Industry 4.0 concept and to provide an initial I4.0 readiness assessment.
A short video of the workshop was made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGBDM_g084I&feature=youtu.be 

November 13, 2017

Industry 4.0 speech at WPI, Worchester
On 13 November 2017 Dr. Erwin Rauch (Free University of Bolzano, Italy) was invited to hold a speech on Industry 4.0 in Europe and the project SME 4.0 at the student award ceremony dinner of SME.org at WPI. SME.org – Society of Manufacturing Engineers is one of the leading associations of manufacturing in the United States and collaborates with many Universities. The Worcester chapter of SME.org honored 5 students of WPI for their effort and dedication in SME related activities. After the speech all participants (representatives of Industry, WPI and students) were invited to a Question-Answer session and discussed Industry 4.0, its role in Europe and in the United States and the impact on small and medium sized enterprises.