Fokus

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The high-tech industry is one of the most important cornerstones in the Flanders-Netherlands border region. New (disruptive) technologies, upcoming competition from emerging markets, increasingly higher consumer demands and the increasing scarcity of raw materials require redesign of the production chain with more flexibility, diversity and quality. Today, the industry must be able to cope with customisation, higher quality demands and shorter lead times. To achieve this, flexible and more efficient and faster production processes are needed. But also the organisations involved and the operators controlling such production systems must keep up with these evolutions. In the border region, the sector is working hard on this inevitable transformation towards a more digital industry. For example, there is the Industry 4.0 Transformation Agenda in Flanders and Smart Industry in the Netherlands which, thanks to close cooperation and the necessary exchange of knowledge and experience, considerably facilitate the facilitation and support of the manufacturing industry on both sides of the border. Fokus is a direct result of the TOP of the end of 2016 where the prime ministers of the Netherlands and Flanders committed themselves to the high-tech cooperation agenda to link the activities of the Factory of the Future in both countries. For example, Fokus connects knowledge, facilities and technologies through the intensive cooperation of 7 knowledge labs in the Netherlands and Flanders. To this end, industrial partners such as Agoria, FME, HighTech NL and Brainport Industries and knowledge institutions Sirris, Flanders Make, KU Leuven campus Bruges, Open Manufacturing Campus and TNO join forces. Companies can make use of this infrastructure to develop and implement innovations that enable them to transform into a Factory of the Future (FotF). Fieldlab Flexible Manufacturing (Eindhoven), Smart & Digital Factory Application Lab (Diepenbeek), Lab “the ultimate factory” (Bruges) and Open Manufacturing Campus (Turnhout) also undergo infrastructure optimization. A funnel method is applied whereby the procedure starts at 200 companies that have had a web-based scan performed. Subsequently, we will organise 150 personal detailing interviews with one of the project partners. In the next stage, 75 companies can take part in interactive workshops. Finally, 35 individual trajectories will be assigned to the different practical labs, the output of this process resulting in a concrete and individual implementation plan. Using an access voucher, a manufacturing company can buy an innovation scan and transition trajectory worth 10,000 euro.

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