News

With support from, among others, Automation Region, the graduate school IndTech Industrial Technology Graduate School has been established at Mälardalen University (MDH). The graduate school, which offers advanced education in industrial digitization, will train future research leaders to strengthen Sweden's industrial competitiveness.

Recently, the seminar series on the future forms of collaboration finished, where representatives from around 40 companies gathered to discuss working methods and organizational structures. Martin Marklund from Automation Region's member company Sigholm led the seminar series.

– In collaborations within the organization, we gain a lot from whether everyone can be a leader but is also open to being led. You are a leader in the specific situation where you are most knowledgeable, regardless of whether you are a senior or junior.

Automation Region's service business network brings together product-focused companies that want to develop their service operations. Two of the network's participants are Fredrik Gustafsson, Väderstad, and Fredrik Oskarsson at Westermo. They act in different lines of business but in the network, they work towards a common goal – to make everyday life easier for their customers by developing their service portfolio.

As the industry is digitized, the pressure for coordination and cooperation on standards and interoperability between different systems increases. In a joint initiative, RISE, the Royal Institute of Technology, Lund University, the Swedish Institute for Standards and Automation Region are therefore establishing a new knowledge platform for standardization in the digitalized industry.

In collaboration with Science Park Borås, Automation Region is investigating new ways to automate small-scale textile production. The collaboration creates opportunities for automation companies to find new business opportunities within the textile industry, where there is great development potential for automated manufacturing processes.

On December 8^th, Automation Region arranged a digital workshop on automated product configuration - the process of customizing a product. Representatives from about 20 companies and organizations worked on a fictitious case based on a manufacturing company that wants to modernize its product configuration environment.

A large part of Automation Region's activities, projects and initiatives are based on the newly established concept of IndTech. The term describes the development that is taking place in the industry right now, where existing automation and IT systems are being strengthened with new digital solutions. Swedish companies are judged to have a good starting point in this rapid structural transformation, but there are also challenges.

At the beginning of October, the pilot round of Automation Region's training Service Business was completed. The training is aimed at product companies that want to develop their service operations and increase the degree of digitization. We have talked to participants from Xylem and Kanthal - two companies that invest heavily in the development of new services.

How can AI be useful in production and manufacturing? What is important to think about and how do you get started? On September 22, Automation Region conducted a webinar focusing on industrial AI applications.

- More and more organizations are investing in AI, but in the traditional manufacturing industry development is not so fast, says Peiman Momeni, business developer at Peltarion. Many who we come in contact with state that they would like to wait for the technology to mature and for the tools to be better suited for their specific business.