Coordinator:
Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) is the leading major appliance manufacturer in the world, with approximately $21 billion in annual sales, 92,000 employees and 70 manufacturing and research technology centers in 2019. The company markets Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, Consul, Brastemp, Amana, Bauknecht, Jenn-Air, Indesit, Hotpoint, and other major brand names in nearly every country throughout the world. Whirlpool EMEA has a solid background in European funded project having participated in more than 15 initiatives in the last 10 years. In particular, it will provide recent competencies acquired through BEinCPPS and QU4LITY.
INESC TEC is a private non-profit research institution with 30 years of experience in R&D and technology transfer, incorporating 13 R&D Centres, structured in four thematic domains - Computer Science, Industry and Innovation, Networked Intelligent Systems, and Power and Energy. As an institution operating at the interface of the academic and business worlds, it brings closer together academia, companies, public administration, and society. INESC TEC continuously monitors and tests the new manufacturing technologies of Industry 4.0, and transfers this knowledge to the market through advanced training courses and demonstration projects. INESC TEC will contribute to this project with its competencies in the field of interoperability, architectures, and recommendation algorithms.
Politecnico di Milano is the most important technical university in Italy and one of the best in Europe. It will join through the Department of Economics, Management and Industrial Engineering (DIG). In particular, the research group of Manufacturing will be involved in this project with its specific competences in the fields of Manufacturing Strategy, ICT for Manufacturing, Factory Digital Transformation, Manufacturing Systems Design, Production and Maintenance Management and Education in Manufacturing in which the group can be considered the leader among the Italian Universities and Research Centres. The group has been involved in several European and international research projects, furthermore, it is very active in roadmap and technology foresights, where has been the coordinator of the IMS NoE and of the IMS2020 and partner of ActionPlanT, Pathfinder, So-Smart, ManuSkills, MIDIH, Boost4.0 and MARKET4.0
Sonae Arauco, a SONAE linked third party, is a key European player with over 50 years’ experience in the field of wood-based panels production, supplying industrial clients such as IKEA or Nobilia. With circa 3000 employees, it has over 20 industrial plants and commercial sites in countries such as Germany, Portugal, Spain and South Africa and sells to 75 countries. It manufactures wood-based panels such as particleboard, MDF, OSB as well as decorative (surfaced) panels for furniture, flooring and construction applications. Together with the SONAE central unit “Granted Projects”, Sonae Arauco will guide the developments made by the consortium, bringing their industrial experience, and piloting the solutions developed. It will involve a skilled team with expertise in definition and systems architecture of IT solutions for deployment in manufacturing environments, R&D product development, Marketing and Commercial as well as the Prescription team.
As a Center of Excellence, Cefriel can merge technical and design skills with business and process expertise, thus supporting companies throughout the entire innovation cycle, from idea generation to product/service development. Thanks to 30+ years of expertise in the IT area, Cefriel will contribute to this project with its competencies in the field of user experience design, data visualization, client-server applications to deliver an innovative end-to-end digital solution. Cefriel is also the Italian node of the IDSA association Cefriel will support the consortium in the assessment and definition of requirements for the application. Cefriel will specifically work on the data sovereignty ecosystem rules part of the application (WP2), and will give support in the design, development, and test of the application (WP3-4). Cefriel will also collaborate with Politecnico di Milano for the
creation of the educational module related to the use of AI in the supply chain to support decisions and provide value to stakeholders (WP5). Cefriel's