CloudiFacturing to invest €100 million in European SMEs and manufacturing startups; launches its second open call

CloudiFacturing, a project that is part of the European Factories of the Future Research Association (EFFRA), today launches its second Open Call for the application of experiments in the area of Production Engineering for Digital Predictive Manufacturing.

This second call seeks innovative use cases in the sector that have a clear industrial impact depending on the benefits expected from the exploitation of computer engineering and production services and workflows powered by CloudiFacturing technology. SMEs or manufacturing companies (end users) interested in the application of experiments involving this technology can submit their applications from July 1 to September 30, 2019.

As part of the project, CloudiFacturing will empower over 60 European organizations (many of them being manufacturing SMEs) and will support about 20 cross-national application experiments that will primarily be selected via two Open Calls.

To apply, participating organizations and startups must present experiments that simulate manufacturing processes or elements thereof, as well as optimization in manufacturing processes. The case studies will have to be oriented to the end user (e.g. manufacturing industries – particularly small and medium enterprises). The proposed case studies are expected to involve small consortiums, end users of manufacturing industries, independent software suppliers, engineering consultants, research organizations, suppliers of HPC (High Performance Computing) and DIH (Digital Innovation Hubs).

It is expected that the average funding for experiment will be of 100 thousand euros with a maximum of 60 thousand euros for individual members. More information will be published on the CloudiFacturing website.

The mission of CloudiFacturing is to optimize production processes and producibility using Cloud/HPC-based modeling and simulation, leveraging online factory data and advanced data analytics, thus contributing to the competitiveness and resource efficiency of manufacturing SMEs, ultimately fostering the vision of Factories 4.0 and the circular economy. To pursue this mission, computationally demanding production engineering and simulation, as well as data analytics tools, are to be provided as Cloud services to ease accessibility and make their use more affordable.

I4MS (ICT Innovation for Manufacturing SMEs) is an European initiative that supports manufacturing SMEs and mid-caps in the use of the spread of information and communication technologies (ICT) in their business operations. Through I4MS, SMEs can request technological and financial support to carry out small experiments that allow them to test digital innovations through open calls.

The European Factories of the Future Research Association (EFFRA) is a non-for-profit, industry-driven association promoting the development of new and innovative production technologies. It is the official representative of the private side in the ‘Factories of the Future’ public-private partnership. CloudiFacturing is a project that is part EFFRA within the framework of the I4MS program (ICT Innovation for Manufacturing SMEs) and with the support of the European Union 2020 Research and Innovation Program.

CloudiFacturing is one of the projects in I4MS, and started in October 2017 as part of the European Action of Innovation in the field of the Factories of the Future and with the support of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program of the European Union. Its mission is to optimize production processes through simulation in the cloud or Cloud.