Project: Smart Dat

The goal of the project is to offer activities in automation and digitalization for small and medium-sized companies in the manufacturing sector in the Linnaeus region, strengthen the degree of innovation, provide increased access to applied research, and thus increase productivity and competitiveness.

The project offers knowledge-strengthening efforts and promotes technology diffusion in an existing demonstration facility. Through long-term investments, SMEs become better equipped to face future challenges, to be aware of opportunities in automation and digitization, and to manage global competition and societal changes. The project also aims to improve the conditions for sustainable production that takes environmental, economic and social perspectives into account.

Facts about the project

Project leader
Hatem Algabroun

Other project members
Jan Weiss, senior lecturer, cost benefit analysis and industrial innovation
Tobias Schauerte, senior lecturer, industrial economics and strategic management
Osama Ziada, research engineer, automation, robotics and production flow analysis
Hatem Algabroun, senior lecturer, smart maintenance
Lars Håkansson, professor, signal processing and condition monitoring
Mauro Caporuscio, professor, digital twins and cyber physical systems
Claudio D G Linhares, senior lecturer, Information Visualization and Visual Analytics
Jetro Kenneth Pocorni, senior lecturer, automation, robotics and production flow analysis

Participating organisations
Linnaeus University, IUC Kalmar, Campus Ljungby, Epic – Innovation & Technology Center

Funding
The Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, the European Regional Development Fund (ERUF), Region Kalmar County, Region Kronoberg, and Linnaeus University

Timeline
1 September 2023–31 December 2026

Subject area
Mechanical engineering (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Technology) and Data and information science (Department of Computer Science and Media Technology, Faculty of Technology

Research Group
Smart Industry Group (SIG)

Linnaeus University Centre
Linnaeus University Centre for Data Intensive Sciences and Applications (DISA)

Linnaeus Knowledge Environment
Linnaeus Knowledge Environment: Digital Transformations

Skills-enhancing activities and knowledge exchange

The first step is outreach in order to find interested companies and do a needs analysis, which is mainly carried out by Campus Ljungby and IUC Kalmar. We meet with companies to gather information about their operations and needs, in order to offer support and guidance in the use of technology. Companies are of course also welcome to contact us directly if there is an interest in collaboration.

In order to show opportunities related to digitalization and automation, we offer inspirational lectures, where companies and researchers can listen to experienced speakers who present successful examples of the use of technology in the manufacturing industry. The inspirational lectures can give you an increased understanding of the potential in digitalization and automation, and provide inspiration to explore and test the technology in your own business.

We offer in-depth lectures so that you can immerse yourself in technical subjects. The lectures are tailored to the needs of the participants and provide a more in-depth understanding of the technology, which can help your company implement the technology more efficiently and with better results.

Exploration of automation and digitalization possibilities in demonstrators/labs

Developments in automation and digitalization occur at a rapid pace, and it is therefore important to be able to provide a demonstrator environment that meets the demands and needs of the industry. The aim is to give companies the opportunity to, together with researchers, develop new technology and innovative solutions to problems through workshops and experiments in the demonstrator environment. The demonstrator environment functions as a platform for needs-based research and development.

Workshops and experiments will be used to illustrate principles and make them concrete so that SMEs can test technical solutions in practice. Examples of such workshops may include operator programming, simulation and verification in the demonstrator environment, machine safety including safety sensors, mobile autonomous robots, and robots for collaborative applications. It can also be about the productivity-enhancing application of AI and digital twins, etc., but also equipment such as sensors, infrastructure, computers, actuators, etc. that meet the requirements to be implemented in the factory and on the machines during digitization.

Pilot case

Similar to our sister projects IoT Lab for SMEs (https://lnu.se/iotlabforsmf) and HPC for SMEs (https://lnu.se/hpcforsmf ), we will work closely with companies to jointly experiment with the technology in the form of so-called pilot cases.

The purpose of the pilot case is to develop new technical solutions for small and medium size companies that can support you in optimizing your processes and increasing competitiveness. They are carried out in close collaboration between the company and researchers, which gives you access to new ideas and expert knowledge, while the researchers get practical experience of to work with real problems.

Pilot cases give small and medium-sized companies the opportunity to test and evaluate new technical solutions before they are implemented in their own operations, and the results can be disseminated to other companies to increase knowledge and opportunities to use the new technology.

Cost-benefit analysis of automated and digitalized production processes

Automation and digitalization can bring benefits to companies by streamlining production and improving the quality of products and services, but in order to benefit from these technologies, it is important that companies do a cost-benefit analysis before investing in more automated and digitalized production processes. This is in view of the fact that small and medium sized companies are affected by resource scarcity.

This requires an overhaul of the company's current production processes. The purpose is to map the company's operational strengths and weaknesses. It is then evaluated whether automation and digitization could contribute to improving the processes and thus the competitive position.

The cost-benefit analysis will then provide answers to how well individual automation and digitalization initiatives would be suitable for tackling possible operational pain points. The goal is to create a short list of production processes that should be prioritized. Within the framework of this, investment calculations will be made to quantify which investments in automation and digitalization should be prioritized based on financial returns. It requires data on basic investment costs as well as assumptions about future revenues and costs over the economic life of the investment.