La Fundación Zaragoza Logistics Center (ZLC) es un instituto de investigación promovido por el Gobierno de Aragón en colaboración con el Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts (MIT) y adscrito a la Universidad de Zaragoza. ZLC solicitó una acción de movilidad para su personal no docente en línea con su estrategia de internacionalización y capacitación de su personal. Tras ser concedida, en el marco de este proyecto, un miembro no docente de ZLC tuvo la oportunidad de realizar una estancia de 5 días en otra institución de naturaleza internacional, el Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa. Mediante el aprendizaje por observación, se intercambiaron experiencias sobre los distintos procedimientos empleados en sendos departamentos de educación. Dicho intercambio en última instancia redundó en una mejora en la calidad del servicio en ambas instituciones. Los resultados no sólo se circunscribieron al ámbito profesional, sino que también se propició el desarrollo de competencias de la participante. Así mismo, se ha establecido una relación de cooperación entre ambas instituciones.

AI-CUBE seeks to enhance the understanding of different digital technologies related to artificial intelligence (AI) and big data (BD) applied in process industries for all the SPIRE industrial sectors (cement, ceramics, chemicals, engineering, minerals and ores, non-ferrous metals, steel, water). Therefore, a close collaboration with industry is mandatory to achieve in-depth insights into possible application areas of AI for processes, technology, sensor applicability and assessment of their level of penetration. The overall project approach is based on the development of a 3-dimensional conceptual matrix based on: 1) AI and BG technologies 2) Application areas (activities and industrial processes) 3) SPIRE sectors AI-CUBE’s main goal is to define a roadmap in AI and the use of BD for the process industry and their maturity level across the industrial sectors, including guidelines for implementation. Industrial stakeholders and associations will validate the consolidated roadmap ensuring solution feasibility and benefits for the European industrial community. A crosslinked vision over process industry sectors shall facilitate cooperation and boost technologies deployment at their full potential. An in-depth consultation with industry (association, representatives, companies) will provide an overview of current AI and BD algorithms application, identifying exploitable synergies among sectors. A deep study of the application areas in planning and operations within other industrial sectors facilitates a gap analysis, propitiating knowledge sharing among processes and sectors. A Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria analysis will obtain a widely supported and consensus-based action plan for industrial consultation. This will allow the inclusion of a broad stakeholder community representing the main industry actors throughout all the SPIRE sectors, with which the project consortium has strong connections that will support sector integration and stakeholders’ engagement.

INSPIRE aims at increasing the competitiveness of European manufacturing which depends on producing differentiated and high added value products in an efficient and sustainable manner, with reduced production costs, increased product quality, minimised time to market and optimized strategies towards resource efficiency. The main focus of this project is the development of innovative business models creating flexible networks through the use of intensified processing that would promote more local production in Europe within the 5 years after the end of this study. The project takes an interesting and valuable approach by bringing together the (downstream) manufacturing (“Factory of the Future”) community with the (upstream) process industry (SPIRE) community, as well as regional industrial clusters (parks) to study required changes of business models in Europe, due to a.o. 1) further integration of these industries in the value chain leading to more flexible and demand driven business operation and 2) increased trends towards resource sharing and optimization across multiple process industries (e.g. through industrial symbiosis within regional contexts such as industrial parks). Special attention will also be given to how this approach would be responding to the needs of SMEs as partners in value chains. Expected outcome of this project would be the description of the current European landscape and link between intensified processing and flexibility, development of innovative business models for different sectors in general, and providing a guideline to measure the performance of such novel models under different scenarios.