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Everyone will have understood by now that the fourth industrial revolution is no passing trend. The digitisation of products and production continues steadily. Companies that want to remain competitive have no alternative but to jump on the bandwagon. However, focussing on technological progress alone does not suffice. To be able to make a...

The United Nations have set themselves 17 ambitious Sustainable Development Goals, which they aim to achieve by 2030. Flanders Make focuses on 5 of these goals through research and technological innovation.

Belgian companies put artificial intelligence and big data analysis on top of their list of most disruptive technologies for their processes. This appears from a study among 122 companies that we performed at the end of 2019. We are definitely not alone in this. Worldwide, 92% of the companies indicate that their expenditures will mainly focus on...

Customers increasingly want smart, customised products with short delivery terms. To be able to meet this market demand, companies must thoroughly innovate their production systems. The cost-efficient incorporation of product variation in the production process is the key to success. Variability can keep production in Flanders and may even bring...

Germany, land of beer and sausages, country of Chancellor Merkel, but also the country in which in 2011 the term ‘Industry 4.0’ was introduced to describe the digital transformation within the manufacturing industry. From 15 to 17 October, we visited a number of leading Industry 4.0 businesses in Germany with a group of 30 Flemish entrepreneurs...

Companies are always looking for ways to improve their productivity and increase their profitability. Efficiency is the key concept here. Data-driven manufacturing is an ideal way to increase your efficiency and strengthen your competitiveness.

The wide availability of inexpensive sensors and the ability to connect them to the internet provide great development opportunities and ensure a bright future for the manufacturing industry. The Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet in the United States, Industry 4.0 in Europe and 物 联网 (wù lián wăng) in China are all about the...

When robots, artificial intelligence and other technologies play an increasingly important part at the workplace, the role of human operators becomes increasingly important as well. This may sound like a paradox but it isn’t. The 21st century will be the era of knowledge workers. Whoever wants to know tomorrow’s competences, can consult the texts...