From 9th to 11th of April 2019 most of the project-consortium working on the publicly funded Research Project OPTIMUM enjoyed being at KONECRANES in Hyvinkää, Finland. DEMAG is one of the subsidiaries of KONECRANES.
The German project partners (University of Rostock, IFAK, THORSIS, TARAKOS and DEMAG) travelled to Hyvinkää. The Turkish company ERMETAL, Korean companies ETRI and HANDYSOFT as well as MAGTEL from Spain joined in person as well.. COMNOVO (Germany) and BEIA (Romania) were also connected via Skype.
On 9th of April Juha Pankakoski, Executive VP Technology, kindly welcomed the consortium and presented Konecranes. Afterwards the project partners had the chance to present their companies and participate in a Factory Tour. Matti Kemppainen, Director Research& Innovation, presented with his team three Konecranes Research Demonstrators and the day closed with the OPTIMUM Consortium preparing their mobile demonstrations as well as the audimax “Goliath” for the next day.
The “OPTIMUM-Day” on 10th of April started with a general overview of the project and its main targets and challenges. Technical presentations done by the Work Package leaders followed and were pointing out their key achievements, e.g. the Research Factory currently under the make at DEMAG in Wetter and some project KPI´s.
After lunch the practical demonstrations started: IFAK demonstrated tandem drive with a mobile crane demonstrator shipped especially to Hyvinkää for this occasion. ETRI & HANDYSOFT presented material handling use cases with alphabots and a camera-assisted anti-collision function. TARAKOS demonstrated its 3D-Simulation tool and their VR glasses. University of Rostock showed first functionalities of an indoor positioning system for pedestrians and COMNOVO presented its Indoor-localization system as well. Some more use cases and anticipated demonstrator concepts were presented by ERMETAL and MAGTEL. After closure of the official OPTIMUM day, Konecranes presented three more Research Demos to the consortium.
Giuliano Persico, Manager Electronics development, says: 'Within the OPTIMUM project we have the opportunity to address such complex issues as distributed control systems, M2M wireless and real-time communication, IT security, open communication protocols for different machines, localization of machines and people in the factory hall, as well as new intuitive HMI approaches and to define, implement and demonstrate solutions in different demonstrators. We are happy to have a consortium of proven experts on all these topics who can actively help us implement and validate our material handling demonstrator in Wetter in a realistic industrial environment. The project results will later help us to define the right development projects to realize innovative and sellable products and services for our customers.'
On 11th of April the OPTIMUM-Partners had an internal Technical Core Group meeting which is organised via skype every 3 weeks and F2F approximately two or three times per year. Afterwards the consortium departed back home or travelled to other business destinations.
Matti Kemppainen, Director Research & Innovation, says: “The very high-quality presentations clearly linked the research projects of different parties and even though OPTIMUM is only halfway through, the achievements are already good. I can hardly wait to see what the final presentations will look like in one years’ time. The Demos also summarized the tasks of the whole big OPTIMUM project well and big thanks to Anja and the OPTIMUM consortium for coming to Finland to present their project.”
Petri Asikainen, Director Core Technology, says: “Optimum Consortium has a nice diversity of partners from research institutes to industrial developers and end users. Based on presentations, discussions and demos, it’s become obvious, that all are gaining benefit from the partners around. Ingredients for good results clearly exist, and I wish to see intensive collaboration among partners in coming months. Looking forward for Industrial IoT and Distributed Control Platform findings and conclusions, that OPTIMUM will deliver. Thanks to Anja and the whole organizing team for interesting sessions.”
Anja Fischer, Project Manager, says: “The consortium is very happy to have had the chance to present their companies and OPTIMUM at Konecranes and is impressed about Konecranes and the research work done in Hyvinkää. Also, we want to thank Aira, Matti and Petri with their teams for the remarkable and caring organization and for the great hospitality. It really was an unforgettable experience in every respect, and we are looking forward to present again in summer or fall of 2020!
