Several events were organized during these last months in collaboration with the i4Q project teams. Two important webinars were held with other EU initiatives giving more impact to the work ongoing in the different workpackages. i4Q was also very active during the I-ESA conference time with presentations, workshop and visit of the FACTOR pilot.   

Industry 4.0 Web Café on Sustainable Manufacturing

On 31 March was held the third webinar of Industry 4.0 Web Cafés.

This initiative was possible thanks to the collaboration of 7 European initiatives related to manufacturing - I4MS, DIMOFAC, Integradde, Penelope, Level-Up, Change2Twin and i4Q.

How can the industry move towards sustainable manufacturing and benefit from it?

The floor was given to 4 people who were able to offer us their answers to this question :

We need stricter regulations

Implementing new processes may be challenging but it’s the only way to go. According to the European Environmental Agency, the industry was responsible in 2016 for more than 30% of the waste produced in the EU.

Virtualisation can be a huge game-changer to save resources

When testing packaging processes, a company can use a lot of plastic. Multiply by the number of tests and it results in huge amounts of waste.

However, through the use of digital twins, a digital replica of the machine, you can virtualise any process and witness the outcome as accurately as if the test had been conducted physically thus saving a lot of resources.

Have a life-cycle thinking approach

In short, the resources that you save thanks to a new implementation might be compensated for by more waste, more energy used, etc. further down the process. A holistic view is required before making a decision.

You can comply with sustainable manufacturing practices but also benefit from them

There are some concrete benefits brought by sustainable manufacturing implementations, for the community, but also for the company. By focusing on reducing the amount of energy or waste in a given process, a factory will automatically save money on its energy bill and on its raw materials purchases hence becoming more competitive.

I-ESA 2022

The I-ESA 2022 conference is held every two years and in 2022 took place from March 21 to 25 at Valencia in Spain. It allowed the various actors of the i4Q project to meet and present the current status of the project. A whole afternoon of workshop dedicated to the Industrial Data Services for Quality Control in Smart Manufacturing was organized. With mainly i4Q communications, it offered an overview of the challenges and solutions contained in the project.

Factor Pilot's Visit

The I-ESA conference also allowed to visit the production site of the company Factor, pilot of the i4Q project, located in Puçol, 30min north of Valencia. Factor is specialised in metal machining and precision turning for different industrial sectors (Aeronautics, Agriculture, Automotive, Electronics, Elevation and Handling, Energy, Hydraulics, Medical, Naval).

This visit allowed the actors in charge of the construction of the i4Q solutions to have an overview of the real situation in order to be able to better adapt the solutions to a concrete case.

4ZDM Webinar | Digital Technologies for Zero-Defect Manufacturing

The 4ZDM cluster is composed of running EU funded projects dealing with the smart manufacturing issues. With i4Q, you find the OPTIMAI, DAT4.zero, InterQ and PeneloPe projects involved in this initiative. Several common dissemination actions are ongoing. More information can be found on the dedicated website 4zdm.eu.

A webinar was organized on April 20th. This event presents results from the key ZDM Projects that are establishing a complete ecosystem of Industry 4.0 solutions that can simplify the developement of Zero-Defect Processes.

This event was an opportunity for Illias Gialampoukidis, deputy coordinator of the project, and Cinzia Rubattino to present i4Q with its specificities within the 4ZDM project ecosystem launched by the H2020 program of the European Commission

Please find more information on the 4ZDM Cluster website:

CONSORTIUM