Closing the Loop: Debating the Adoption of Industry 4.0 in Belgian Manufacturing
On Thursday 22 September 2022, the top of the manufacturing world was a guest at D2M (Design to Manufacturing), the networking event for the Belgian manufacturing and design community at Kortrijk Xpo. It brought together numerous experts from research and competence centres, education and technology federations. An excellent opportunity to put some heads together that evening within the theme Manufacturing 4.0 – Closing the loop, or in human terms how come Belgian manufacturing companies are so slow in adapting Industrie 4.0 in their production organisation.
Organiser Industrialfairs brought together from the expert world Herman Derache (Sirris), Marc Engels (Flanders Make), Kris Binon (Flam3D) and Bert Lauwers (KULeuven) with 3 innovative early adaptors from the manufacturing industry, namely Pieter-Jan Deman (Stas), Timen Floré (Vintiv) and Pieter Steen (Jori). During the debate, several themes were tackled including:
- Digitisation
- Additive Manufacturing
- Advanced, smart & generative design
- Robot adaptation
- More machine, less operator
- Innovative ecosystems
The discussion elaborated on the why manufacturing companies are slow to roll out new manufacturing technology and digitalisation, including limited innovation budgets, limited depreciation sizes and young engineers choosing to work for large companies, were discussed in more detail. Flam3D also gave its views on the above themes and how they affect the AM world.
Some key findings emerged from the discussion. Would you like to learn more about the experts’ insights or are you looking for the full article? Then be sure to click through via the following link.