May 18, 2018

Visit of Progress Group
Visiting Phd. student Andrew Vickery from WPI in the USA visited Progress Group on May 18, 2018 as part of an excursion with students of the Industrial and Mechanical Engineering course at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. As a technology supplier in the precast concrete industry, Progress operates in a rapidly growing and international market. Together with executives from the Progress Group and Dr.-Ing. Erwin Rauch of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, an assessment for Industry 4.0 was carried out. In addition, a student project was started to digitize the assembly workstations.

May 18, 2018

Seminar held at TUKE – Faculty of Manufacturing Technologies
On May 18th 2018 a seminar was held at TU Kosice, Faculty of Manufacturing Technologies (Slovakia) by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sakgasem Ramingwong (University of Chiang Mai). The introductory seminar aimed to present the research focus and current activities of Prof. Ramingwong within the SME 4.0 project. The visit of logistic and production facilities of ELCOM, s.r.o. (Presov, Slovakia) will follow.

May 3, 2018

EUCLIDES network meeting at Free University of Bolzano
On May 3rd, inner the 25th EUCLIDES Network meeting organized by prof Renato Vidoni at the Free University of Bolzano, the project SME 4.0 as well as the SMART-Mini-Factory Lab activities and infrastructure have been presented by Dr Guido Orzes, prof Renato Vidoni, Dr Gabriele Pasetti Monizza, Dr Patrick Dallasega and Dr Rafael Rojas. The EUCLIDES Network is a network of European Engineering and Technology Universities that collaborate for the improvement of services offered by its members and comprises about 18 institutions all around Europe.

April 10, 2018

Training lecture in Robotics of Prof. Renato Vidoni at CMU
On Tuesday April 10th, Prof. Renato Vidoni, as part of the activities of his secondment at the CMU – Thailand, gave a lecture organized by Prof. Korrakot Y. Tippayawong at the Industrial Engineering Department of the Chiang Mai University on one of the SME4.0 project topics: “Robotics: current and future trends in manufacturing”. Through the discussion with students, important insights on both their knowledge of Industry 4.0 enabling technologies and the Thailand industrial market demands have been highlighted.

April 6, 2018

Visit to the Pandora Company – Lamphun crafting facility in Thailand
On April 6th  2018 Prof. Renato Vidoni and Dr Giovanni Carabin from unibz joined the visit to the Pandora facilities organized by prof Korrakot Y. Tippayawong of Chiang-Mai University. Pandora designs, manufactures and markets hand-finished and contemporary jewellery made from high-quality materials at affordable prices. Students and researchers had the chance to see the facilities and the different steps of the process focusing on the potential benefits that Industry 4.0 and its enabling technologies are bringing and could bring to the factory.

March 22, 2018

Second SME 4.0 Workshop at WPI, Worcester
As a follow-up to the workshop on 22 September 2017, in which the requirements of SMEs regarding Industry 4.0 concepts were discussed, a second workshop on "Axiomatic Supply Chain design for Industry 4.0" took place at WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) in Worcester, MA. The meeting was hosted by Prof. Chris Brown (WPI) and Visiting Researcher Prof. Helmut Zsifkovits (Montanuniversitaet Leoben, Austria). Based on the results from the September workshop, concepts and methods from supply chain design and axiomatic design were brought together in order to develop supply chains in a structured and systematic way. A total of 11 people from small and medium sized enterprises and some graduate students participated in this workshop in the Sports & Recreation Center at WPI. After introductory presentations given by the hosts, participants worked interactively on a decomposition of required functions and physical solutions. This rather novel approach produced good results and seems to offer much potential. Follow-up activities and joint publications are planned.

February 8, 2018

International Workshop on Industry 4.0 at SACS MAVMM Engineering College
Our partner organization SACS MAVMM Engineering College (India) namely Dr. Sudhakarapandian and Dr. Krishan organized and hosted an international workshop for local SMEs on February 8, 2018. Presidents of local SMEs have presented current state and barriers in implementation of Industry 4.0 concepts. The worskhop was supported by scientific presentations of secondees from TU Kosice - Dr. Tibor Krenicky, Dr. Peter Smeringai, Leos Safar, Jakub Sopko.

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.