As a starting point, a large amount of content was presented to the experts: Firstly, an overview of challenges faced in the manufacturing domain, as well as the underlying trends by which they are caused (“pull perspective”). Secondly, an overview of current and future research themes (“push perspective”). Experts were faced with the challenge to scrutinize this content for missing aspects and to identify the key issues which deserve particular attention.

Four manufacturing scenarios were explored in detail, among them sustainable/green manufacturing, or the virtual enterprise. Key manufacturing IT challenges that were identified in several scenarios independently were subsequently examined in detail.

We would like to thank all participating experts for their input and are excited to turn all the valuable material into a first Road4FAME roadmap.

In personal interviews of about 15-30 min duration each, representatives from manufacturing companies as well as solution providers (IT vendors, integrators, etc.) kindly provided their perspectives on the most urgently required IT functionalities of manufacturing companies and anticipated requirement changes in the future.

Interviews were conducted in cooperation with the SmartFactory initiative, which also showcased an impressive example of a future production line and received strong interest by visitors and industry representatives.

(In the picture, from left to right: Dr Jürgen Grotepass of DFKI/Smart Factory initiative, coordinator of a German national Industry-4.0 project; Christian Albrecht of Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum, coordinator of Road4FAME; Ursula Rauschecker of Fraunhofer IPA, project partner in Road4FAME; Rüdiger Dabelow of DFKI, Managing director of Smart Factory initiative.)

The Road4FAME project start has just been announced at the Imagine FoF 2020 Conference which took place June 12-14 in Geneva. We were pleased by the great interest in our roadmapping initiative and look forward tobuilding on the work of the ActionPlanT project.

We are happy to announce the start of Road4FAME, a project co-financed within the Factories of the Future PPP in the 7th Framework Programme.

Road4FAME stands for “Development of a Strategic Research and Innovation Roadmap for Future Architectures and Services for Manufacturing in Europe.” The central output of Road4FAME which will be a strategic research and innovation roadmap for IT architectures and services in manufacturing.

Suitable IT architectures are among the most important enablers for ICT in the manufacturing domain. An IT architecture specifies the structure of an IT system, i.e. the arrangement of IT components within such a system. Doing so, it defines how functional components (services) are integrated to the overall system, what interfaces have to look like, which basic services will be provided, etc. This implies most importantly that the IT services – that is, any function of the system – can only be provided if enabled by the architecture. Thus, the architecture determines the capabilities of the system – providing the basis for a powerful manufacturing system, or limiting it strictly.

Towards making ICT a commodity and an enabler for innovation in the manufacturing industry, employing the right IT architecture and IT services is thus of fundamental importance.

Join us with your expertise in the roadmap development process and become a member of the Road4FAME Experts Group.