SMACT Competence Center
Overview
SMACT is one of eight Competence Centers instituted by the Italian Ministry for Economic Development to spread industry 4.0 best practices to SMEs including those in manufacturing, agri-food and other industries. It was founded as a no-profit public-private-partnership by 12 universities, research & public bodies, 14 private technology providers and 15 end-user companies in the Italian North-East, starting its activities in 2019.
The acronym SMACT stands for Social networks, Mobile platforms, advanced Analytics and big data, Cloud and internet of Things, the main technologies the Center works with.
SMACT is a platform enabling value creation and sharing in digital transformation processes, providing services along 3 pillars: demonstration of best practices; high training for management, operators and students; project management to support technology transfer. SMACT is building a network of Live Demos (LD): installation of industry 4.0 technologies to allow stakeholder to «touch and play» with innovations, making them accessible to the vast community of SMEs in the Italian North-East (Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia) and beyond. Each Live Demo implements real-life applications regarding one specific vertical: manufacturing, farm-to-fork, digital twin.
The Competence Center connects and shares the know-how of research institutions with a native predisposition to innovation with the purpose to realize 3 main activities: demonstration of 4.0 technologies and use cases, advanced training, project management of innovation, industrial research and experimental development.
In particular, SMACT provides companies, especially SMEs with the following services:
Orientation and Consultancy
Awareness raising on Industry 4.0 technologies and related benefits for enterprises and SMEs, on Italian Industry 4.0 Strategy, in particular on the Italian Competence Center System.
Workshops, webinars and conferences, reports and analyses on Key Enabling Technologies
Live Demos | 4.0 demonstrators for enterprises. An IoT reference architecture: an innovative technology transfer spaces where every installation is a "teaching case" to see and touch 4.0 technologies in action, in a hardware-software reference architecture that helps answering the questions "how do I do that?" "who do I do it with?" for entrepreneurs, operators and students on the one hand and researchers and tech providers on the other.
LIVE DEMO PADOVA | From Farm to Fork: 3,000 m2 the largest 4.0 demonstrator in Italy, dedicated to the complete food supply chain in a naturally attractive place for research and businesses.
Showcased Use Cases: Production tracking / predictive quality / private 5G / real time monitoring / IoTization of manual lines / new digital first products / optimization of production recipes / circular economy / social inclusion
LIVE DEMO VERONA | Fabbrica del Vino: An advanced IT lab to concentrate data from the production chain and build efficient models, objectifying artisanal processes.
Showcased Use Cases: Data collection from field / outdoor 5G / local RF networks / mobile production management interfaces / agri field-to-hub data streaming / big data analytics / digital twin / waste re-use / chemical reduction
LIVE DEMO ROVERETO | M2M in Manufacturing: 1,000 m2 of mechatronic "factory" to demonstrate and test advanced automation on a real production cycle with advanced machines Exoskeletons, laser guidance, AGVs and cobots are some of the assets available in the Live Demo shared with University of Bolzano
Showcased Use Cases: energy optimization / logistics optimization / granular cost-modeling / supply chain flexibility / operator tracking for security / production capacity servitization / private 5G / secure M2M transmission
LIVE DEMO BOLZANO | H2M in Manufacturing: A demonstration lab to touch and play with the latest man-machine interface technologies for the manufacturing sector.
Showcased Use Cases : operator guidance / plant production control and monitoring / assembly in enclosed space, of bulky objects / AGV-operator interactions / intention recognition / recommendation systems / laser and AR guidance
LIVE DEMO FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA| Digital Twin: IT / OT convergence demonstrated at scale, with data flowing from industrial partners to RTOs for the construction of skills and digital twin libraries of products and processes Digital Twin.
Showcased Use Cases: self learning & adaptive twin / high throughput 5G network / process optimization / preventive mainteinance / secure large data transmission / data anonymization / virtual control room / digital product design ... and more
Advanced Trainings
Vertical thematic webinars to bring companies closer to industry 4.0 technologies
47 public events, over 1,000 users
Digital transformation training: our flagship program for managers and entrepreneurs - 3 days, 7 training modules / in preparation June 2021 edition
DTT web: the contents of the digital transformation training delivered online: the 7 training modules available to everyone / on sale March-May 2021 program
Courses: our on-demand content offering for business to enable the digital transformation / contact us for details
ITS (high technical training) to train tomorrow super technicians with credits toward a bachelor degree / cybersecurity specialist
Innovation Projects and Fundraising Support
SMACT leverages over 6.000 researchers and the great wealth of skills and experiences of industrial and technological partners, which we make available to companies to implement industrial research and experimental development projects through a consolidated process.
SMACT developed a unique methodology for finding and evaluate expertise useful for the innovation of end-user companies.
Scouting and matching of expertise:
• Definition of innovation needs
• Scouting of skills among researchers and providers
• Matching of needs with skills in the network
• Cross-university contracts
• Interface project management 7 Innovation Projects 18 active projects, over €1m
The translation into English of the whole website is on-going and will be available soon. Digital technologies.