sme innovation and development in the context of industry 4 0

Abstract In the years 2013-2014, when the financial crisis that began in 2007 became ruinous for a large number of small companies, the governments of several European countries launched plans to help supersite enterprises. The types of aid have all been oriented towards promoting the innovation of production and logistics processes and have assumed quite similar characteristics in different countries. For this, it's usual to talk about Industry 4.0 plans in each one of the 15 European countries in which these measures to help companies have been financed. The common goal of these programs is to innovate SMEs in terms of automation (of machines), integration (of lines) and interconnection (of the production system with its management). For SMEs it would be a great opportunity. However, their managers - who usually are at the same time, owners, operations managers and technicians) face great difficulties in accessing funding from an Industry 4.0" plan, due to lack of information and limits on their knowledge of new digitization technologies. To help managers / technicians to analyze the critical issues of their own company and prepare a request for technical and financial support from Industry 4.0, Politecnico di Torino and Gruppo Banca di Asti created the PMInnova Program, offering advice for check-ups, project development and participation in regional and European calls. This contribution will introduce the problem of supporting SMEs in the context of Industry 4.0, in the context of Industry 4.0, by evaluating costs and benefits which could be obtained, by answering the following questions: 1. Which are the measures of Industry 4.0 that favor the integration and the digitization in a SME? 2. How could an Industry 4.0 measure be applied to an SME with expected strong impact

Innovate Manufacturing SMEs in the Context of Industry 4.0: A Formal Approach

A few years ago, the “Industry 4.0” programs have been launched in several European countries and USA to support the development and the innovation of SMEs. The common goal of these programs is to innovate SMEs in terms of automation (of machines), integration (of lines), and interconnection (of the production system with its management). For SMEs, it would be a great opportunity. However, SME managers (who usually are at the same time, owners, operations managers, and technicians) face great difficulties in accessing funding from an “Industry 4.0” plan, due to lack of information and limits on their knowledge of new information technologies. This chapter aims at guiding a manager/technician toward the opportunities offered by “Industry 4.0” by presenting some formal models on which managers can base their decisions of innovating their SMEs

An ontology-based model for SME network contracts

Even if collaboration is considered an effective solution to improve business strategies, SMEs often lack common principles and common forms of contractual coordination. Several policies implemented by E.U. have addressed the setup of a comprehensive SME policy framework. However, European institutions seem to have focused more on organizational devices to conduct business activities rather than on contractual forms of coordination. In April 2009, Italy adopted a law in network contract to promote the development of interfirm cooperation strategies to foster enterprises’ innovation and growth. Even if this law represents a novelty in Europe and may offer new challenges and hints, it still presents some lacks in its formulation. The current research aims at presenting the Italian law for network contract, by highlighting both its potentialities and its defects. A formal model to support the design of a SME network was proposed, by providing both an ontology-based model to help the definition of the contract in a structured way, and a basic workflow to identify the important phases of the network design, i.e., the feasibility study and the negotiation. In this way, the network rules and criteria for controlling the network members’ contributions are defined. Mathematical tools derived from performance optimization were exploited

Editorial: Supply networks design and management

International audienc

Crowd-Engineering: Managing Innovative Product Design by Widening Collaborations

Global contest has overwhelmed enterprises by the eager demand for products and services with high-tech features, along the entire product life cycle. Several companies reacted by developing the cooperation with high-tech firms. However, in the last decade, another revolutionary asset is emerging together with the worldwide networking evolution, namely the "Crowd-Engineering" (C-E): A huge, flexible and diversified human capital-made of individuals and consultants-available for companies to create their products and services. Together with these advantages, however, this asset calls for companies to face the complexity in the crowd management, selecting among competitive contributions and making all of them work effectively and efficiently. Therefore, there is an emerging need for methods and tools to manage C-E processes. This study presents a theoretical framework for managing and selecting crowd contributions along the whole New Product and service Development (NPD) project. Pros and cons of C-E applications are discussed

Inkjet printed flexible non-enzymatic glucose sensor for tear fluid analysis

© 2017 Here, we present a flexible and low-cost inkjet printed electrochemical sensor for enzyme-free glucose analysis. Versatility, short fabrication time and low cost make inkjet printing a valuable alternative to traditional sensor manufacturing techniques. We fabricated electro-chemical glucose sensors by inkjet printing electrodes on a flexible polyethylene terephthalate substrate. CuO microparticles were used to modify our electrodes, leading to a sensitive, stable and cost-effective platform for non-enzymatic detection of glucose. Selectivity, reproducibility, and life-time provided by the CuO functionalization demonstrated that these sensors are reliable tools for personalized diagnostics and self-assessment of an individual's health. The detection of glucose at concentrations matching that of tear fluid allows us to envisage applications in ocular diagnostics, where painless and non-invasive monitoring of diabetes can be achieved by analyzing glucose contained in tears

Promoting SME cooperative aggregations: main criteria and contractual models

Collaboration is considered an effective solution to improve business strategies. However, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) often lack common principles and common forms of contractual coordination. Several policies implemented by the EU have addressed the set-up of a comprehensive SME policy framework, but European institutions seem to have focused more on organisational devices to conduct business activities rather than on contractual forms of coordination. In April 2009, Italy adopted a law in network contract to promote the development of inter-firm cooperation strategies to foster enterprises' innovation and growth. Even if this law represents a novelty in Europe and may offer new challenges and hints, it still presents some lacks in its formulation. The current research aims at presenting the Italian law for network contract and a comparison with other models of SME aggregations adopted in EU countries. A formal model to support the design of an SME network was proposed, by providing both an ontology-based model to help the definition of the contract in a structured way, and a basic workflow to identify the important phases of the network design, i.e. the feasibility study and the negotiatio

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns