Unlocking the potential of IT architectures and services for manufacturing in Europe
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 will be a strategic research and innovation roadmap for IT architectures and services in manufacturing.
The project will:
- identify research needs for IT architectures and services in manufacturing
- align future ICT research with the needs of European manufacturing
- outline the steps needed to make novel concepts work for manufacturing businesses
- provide manufacturers with a frame of reference to develop innovation strategies and identify business opportunities.
The project consortium members include principal players in manufacturing IT, manufacturing research centres, and strategy and roadmap developers from across Europe.
IfM ECS is leading the roadmapping design, methodology and architecture. It will organise and run workshops to develop four preliminary roadmaps representing specific manufacturing business situations and consolidate these into a final comprehensive roadmap.
Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum, Germany, is coordinating the project, and the other consortium members are the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA, Germany; TXT e-solutions S.p.A, Italy; and Critical Manufacturing SA, Portugal.
Suitable IT architectures are among the most important enablers for ICT in the manufacturing domain. An IT architecture specifies the structure of the system – it defines how functional components (services) are integrated in the overall system, defines the interfaces and which basic services will be provided.
The IT architecture determines the capabilities of the system, providing the basis for a powerful manufacturing system. Employing the right architecture and IT services is of fundamental importance to making ICT a commodity and an enabler for innovation in the manufacturing industry.
The project will focus on architectures and services that facilitate flexible manufacturing processes, ease interoperability in distributed manufacturing environments, support collaboration among enterprises and provide grounds for sustainability in manufacturing.
Road4FAME, scheduled to run until late 2015, is co-financed by the European Commission within the Factories of the Future PPP (public-private partnership) under the 7th Framework Programme.
