The FactoRIS Project (“Learning Factories for Digital Transformation of SMEs”) is supported by EIT Manufacturing within the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme. This project has received funding from the European Union’s EIT Manufacturing programme.
FactoRIS’s main goal is to support the case-specific digital transformation of RIS based manufacturing SMEs by evolving existing production facilities towards Industry 4.0. and the uptake of advanced technologies.
Based on an extensive survey of challenges and needs of industry stakeholders, a set of learning factory projects is being implemented to provide them with dedicated digital learning content as well as hands-on experience, while considering their existing production infrastructure.
By stimulating creative thinking and problem-based decision making, the trainees (current and future employees) will upgrade their mindsets and skills, ultimately boosting the momentum of SMEs to transform their company into a next-generation factory with more competitive, smarter and sustainable production.
In 2021, FactoRIS focused on the support of RIS based SMEs in the early stage of their digital transformation journey by means of dedicated pilot learning factories. It is built on existing manufacturing know-how and equipment retrofitting towards the adoption of I4.0 concepts, as well as on upskilling the personnel to boost the uptake of advanced technologies.
In 2022, FactoRIS II aims to strengthen these objectives by
- further evolving existing production facilities towards I4.0 and fostering collaboration between manufacturers and their suppliers within innovative manufacturing ecosystems;
- employing hybrid (physical and digital) learning factories to address technological and organisational aspects of the digital transformation of SMEs;
- developing and expanding the network of partner learning factories in RIS countries.
| EIT Manufacturing is Europe’s leading manufacturing community, one of the newest (established in 2019) of eight innovation communities belonging to the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). The communities are public-private partnerships, partly financed by the European Union and partly financed by their partners, who include some of Europe’s leading enterprises and research organisations. | The Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS) is the EIT Community’s outreach scheme that helps boost innovation capacity in European countries that are considered ‘modest and moderate’ innovators. The RIS scheme enables the transfer of good practices and know-how from EIT’s unique approach to boosting innovation. |