Better Factory will provide methodology for Manufacturing SMEs to collaborate with Artists to develop new and personalized products. At the same time Better Factory will provide technology for SMEs to become fully connected cyber-physical-systems, transforming them into Lean-Agile production facilities capable of manufacturing new and personalized products alongside existing products. Main results: - An Advance Production Planning and Scheduling (APPS) system which can be deployed on a free and open IoT platform at 10% of the cost in 50% less time. APPS will automatically reconfigure the collaborative robots considering the individuality and gender of worker, and will also reduce 10% assets, 25% area, 30% resources, 35% logistics, 40% machines and tools and workplaces, resulting in 13% cost reduction, 15% production increase and 30% time to market. - A Marketplace, a one-stop-shop, where Manufacturing SMEs can buy services from Technology suppliers, Artists, CCs, training providers and financial brokers. - A portfolio of 16 cross-border Application Experiments by 48 SMEs selected through 2 competitive Open Calls, that will test APPS, SME+Artis collaboration and other services, and leveraging 11M€ of public and private funding becoming success stories. - Services, including Technical, Business and Art mentors, infrastructure, training and access to finance. Better Factory network consists of 28 members. 18 DIHs (10 CCs, 8 industry associations), 6 Technology suppliers and 4 service providers for marketing, access to finance, FSTP management and legal framework. Partners are currently engaged in I4MS-Go, DIH², HORSE, L4MS, MIDIH, AMABLE, BOWI, SHOP4CF. Better Factory covers 16 EU countries, 17 regions with 10 of them from EU-13. Better Factory will demonstrate that public funded research can help manufacturing SMEs & Mid-Caps achieve digital excellence and global competitiveness through Lean-Agile production for the manufacturing of new and personalized products.

L4MS (Logistics For Manufacturing SMEs) will spark incremental (productivity increase of new users by a factor of 4 and system setup time reduction by a factor of 10) and disruptive innovation (batch size one & consumerization) for over 100,000 European Manufacturing SMEs & Mid-Caps, building on their intra-factory logistics challenge (50% of the production cost of an item) unleashing their digitalization potential by powering new robot systems that are more cost effective at lower lot sizes. L4MS relies upon: • An open industrial IoT platform with enablers for rapid and efficient deployment of customized logistics solutions. • A suite of "Smartization services" including business modelling, technical support, mentoring, access to skills and to finance. • The L4MS Marketplace, a one-stop-shop, where European Manufacturing SMEs & Mid-Caps will access the L4MS services. • A portfolio of 23 cross-border Application Experiments by 50 SMEs selected through 2 competitive Open Calls, that will test more than 40 services & apps leveraging 10M€ of public funding across 12 established and emerging Digital Innovation Hubs. • A growing ecosystem that will foster Smart Specialization in each single region linked to L4MS. L4MS will transform a pan-European ecosystem into a self-sustainable start-up operating an Open Platform for Innovations in Logistics (OPIL) and L4MS marketplace consisting of 21 members. Comprising 6 Competence Centres, 5 technology providers, 4 industry associations, 3 end-users and 3 business developers -currently engaged in I4MS (XS2I4MS, HORSE and BEinCPPS) and FIWARE- plus 6 Satellites Nodes. L4MS covers 14 EU countries, 15 regions with 8 of them from East Europe. L4MS will help demonstrate that public funded research with a “Smartization” approach (accelerating Industry 4.0) can help manufacturing SMEs & Mid-Caps achieve digital excellence and global competitiveness through logistics automation become “entrepreneurial states and digital industries”.