With its promise of regular, reliable income and business growth, servitization is a compelling proposition for many manufacturers. Yet, servitization journeys can be complex, messy and last longer than expected. Executives frequently struggle to manage the organisational change that is necessary to innovate services within a traditional product-focused business. All to often progress stalls and it is not clear which steps to take next. Force Field Analysis can be a useful tool for decision…

By providing access to technical expertise and experimentation as well as the possibility to 'test before invest', EDIHs help companies improve business/production processes, products, or services using digital technologies. They also provide innovation services, such as financing advice, training, and skills development that are needed for a successful digital transformation. Environmental issues are also taken into account, in particular with regard to energy consumption and low carbon…

Servitization - the transformation from selling products to selling outcome-based services - requires changes at all levels of a business. How do you bring service-led offers to market? How do you solve the tension between products and the services the products enable? How is marketing outcome-based services different from marketing products and what changes will business have to make? On July 14th 2021 host Iain McKechnie has assembled a panel of industry experts for a deep dive into…

Advent of I4.0 is presenting organizations with challenging times, organizations are faced with a lot of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Competences required to manage organizational change extend beyond technological expertise. Rapidly changing environment requires businesses to strive for organizational adaptability in order to achieve a long-term business survival. Organizational adaptability is a balancing act between new or upcoming opportunities for development,…

On April 22nd, the second session of our wave 2 took place, focusing on understanding Industry 4.0 technology implications. BSOs were invited to listen to the input of two experts, Mr. Harald Weigold and Mr. Jörn Linke from ITQ GmbH/Germany, who helped them identify I4.0 tech blind spots and challenges, which occur when implementing I4.0 projects. By the help of a case study, BSO participants were asked to develop recommendations for an industrial company, aiming at introducing an…

This final round of Wave 2 was organized by Business Upper Austria, which involved the two experts from FH JOANNEUM - University of Applied Sciences in Kapfenberg, Prof. Dr. Martin Tschandl and Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Ernst Peßl, to introduce the key aspects to the participants. In their input, the two experts presented the I4.0 roadmapping process developed by FH Joanneum, which also includes a similar tool for maturity assessment as the VDMA maturity model from the first session of Wave2. Using…

On April 29th 2021, the third session of capacity building for business support organizations was held, this time with the focus on the business implications that occur during adoption of new technologies by the companies aiming to improve their business. The aim of this session is to present tools and methods that allow the assessment of opportunities, challenges, risks and change requirements regarding business model, strategy and organisation of the company that wants to introduce new…

On April 15th 2021, the first of the 4 meetings of the Boost4BSO capacity building and knowledge transfer 2nd wave has been held. The objective of this round of meetings is to share methodologies, tools, best practices and a business support models aimed at encouraging investments in Industry 4.0 with the associated BSOs of the Central European area. The first meeting, co-organized by Friuli Innovazione and MESAP, was dedicated to the use of a Industry 4.0-Readiness tool,…

The InnoPeer Advanced Manufacturing (AVM) courses offer a practical introduction to the topic of Industrie 4.0. The transformation towards Industrie 4.0 is one of the key challenges for European companies. Traditional factories turn into “smart factories” by adding connectivity and self-intelligence. Components are printed instead of casted or forged, and profit drivers will be data instead of real products. However, technological changes are not the only challenges awaiting companies…

Despite large investments in innovative technologies, many industries still have a focus on conservative manufacturing. Competition from non-EU countries with low prices and the gradual commoditization of existing products call into question the competitiveness of European SMEs. The aim of the Service innovation methodology is to enable the expansion of the offer of small and medium-sized companies with additional services that will increase the value delivered to customers and improve their…