On the 23rd of November, EFFRA had the pleasure of organising and hosting the final event of the Connected Factories Coordination and Support Action. Around one hundred attendees were present in this in-person knowledge sharing and networking event taking place in Brussels’ Bluepoint Building, during which the topics discussed under the banner of the manufacturing's digital transformation ranged from cutting-edge topics such as circular economy and artificial intelligence to crosscutting themes such as interoperability, standardisation and cybersecurity. 

The event was opened by DG Connect's Head of Unit Malgorzata Nikowska, who stressed the importance of digitalisation and synergies for both public sector and private companies in terms of future resilience. EFFRA’s executive director Željko Pazin and EFFRA’s board member and Connected Factories’ coordinator, Rikka Virkkunen (VTT), provided an overview of the project, in terms of what can be done with digital technologies and the different steps in the scenario as well as providing inspiration for future projects in terms of pathways, crosscutting factors and enablers, which can all be consulted in the Connected Factories' website.  

The first session was dedicated to pathways, with Sergio Gusmeroli (Politecnico di Milano) started by presenting the transition from Connected Factories 1 to Connected Factories 2’s pathways anchored in data spaces, and Katri Valkokary (VTT) focusing on the circular economy pathway, exploring digitalisation as a key enabler.  During the second bloc, the event gave the floor for six different projects - Qu4lity, Zero Defect Manufacturing Platform (ZDPM), the European Factory Platform (EFPF), Kyklos 4.0, Digiprime, and SHOP4CF – to present their demonstrators as well as key findings and challenges. The last bloc of the agenda was dedicated to crosscutting aspects, namely interoperability, standardization, business aspects, cybersecurity, and skills and human aspects, respectively presented by Luis Usatorre (Tecnalia), Olga Meyer (Fraunhofer IPA), Katri Valkokari (VTT), Ulrich Sedeslachts (LSEC),  and Kosmas Alexopoulos (LMS/University of Patras). The event was closed with the presentation of the Digital Transformation use cases catalogue by Meike Reimann (S2i), who also detailed the work done and step-by-step approach of the ConnectedFactories national and regional workshops.

All presentations can be found here and a playlist with the sessions' recording was created as well.

Read the full report on this event and more on the final Connected Factories newsletter.