The Didactic Factory

An open hands-on testing and experimentation facility that helps businesses explore new technologies and ideas before making big investments.

In Circular TwAIn and its ecosystem, the Didactic Factories empower employees with new skills and support businesses in their innovation journey.

They provide hands-on training, access to technical expertise, and cutting-edge facilities for testing and experimentation.

With a strong focus on Industry 4.0, digital transformation, circularity and AI, Didactic Factories help businesses stay ahead in the technological landscape. Whether through specialised training or providing testing environments, they bridge the gap between knowledge and industry, driving innovation and growth.

The Didactic Factory Concept

Why

A Didactic Factory must aim for the competency development of employees and aim for innovation. It can also aim for the competency development of students and new technology advertisement.

How

A Didactic Factory can be achieved by having a physical or online location, real-life environment, or university location. However, people believe that a Didactic Factory must have a physical location.

What

A Didactic Factory must offer training, education, and perform test activities and experimentation. It can also carry out research activities, support test activities and experimentation, and raise awareness and dissemination.

Circular TwAIn’s Collaborative Network of Didactic Factories

Our network is part of a larger Didactic Factory network composed of members from similar European projects, allowing us to leverage peer DFs’ expertise and boost potential.

Similar initiatives, such as AI REDGIO 5.0 and DaCapo, are managing DF networks with different expertise but share a common language as a basis for their service offering.

This common language is the DR-BEST framework, which supports network members in standardising services, gaining awareness of their own technical and technological strengths, and helping their potential customers find custom solutions across Europe. DR-BEST also facilitates the creation of Collaboration corridors based on common interests or objectives between Didactic Factories, to create or jointly provide new services.

Circular TwAIn manages a network of 4 Didactic Factories, each offering specialised services with a strong focus on sustainable practices and circularity.

A three-level taxonomy is used to classify services. This allows the DF to provide a comprehensive overview of all the services it can offer and ensures that services are presented in a consistent, understandable manner.

The Remotization macro-class has been added to the initial DR-BEST taxonomy to focus on the DFs that operate in the AI domain. This class contains all the services a DF may provide remotely to enable experimentation, which don’t require physical customer interaction.

To standardize services and promote collaboration, Didactic Factories use the DR-BEST framework.

Services are first divided into six classes (Data, Remote, Business, Ecosystem, Skills, and Technology), from which the acronym DR-BEST is derived. For each class, the services are further divided at two more levels, to clarify and categorise the type of activity.

The Common Language: DR-BEST Framework

The DR-BEST framework is applied by the DFs in a particular or extended network, helping them outline their current service portfolio and highlight any gaps in their offerings.

Data

  • Data Acquisition & Sensing
  • Data Processing & Analysis
  • Decision Making
  • Physical-Human Action & Interaction
  • Data Sharing

Remote

  • Data Space
  • Ict As A Service
  • Digital Twin
  • Asset As A Service

Business

  • Incubation Acceleration Support
  • Access To Finance
  • Offering Housing
  • Business Training And Education
  • Project Development

Ecosystem

  • Community Building
  • Dih Innovation Development
  • Ecosystem Governance

Skills

  • Process & Organizational Maturity
  • Human Capability
  • Maturity
  • Skills Improvement

Technology

  • Ideas Management And Materialization
  • Contract Research
  • Provision Of Infrastructure
  • Technical Support On Scale Up
  • Verification And Validation

The sub-classes identified cover different degrees of DF-customer interaction, including four types of assets that may be available by a DF:

  • Data Space

    Real-Time Industrial Data Platform,
    Assets Administration Shell, Assets Data Marketplace,

  • ICT as a Service

    Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service,

  • Digital Twin

    FEM/CFD/FSI simulation, Discrete event simulation, Ambient virtualisation,

  • Assets as a Service

    Teleoperation, Monitoring platform, Avatar.

Our Didactic Factories Network

Swiss Smart Factory

Location
Aarbergstrasse 46, 2503 Biel/Bienne, Switzerland

Contact point
Dominic Gorecky

The Swiss Smart Factory serves as a didactic factory to showcase cutting-edge advancements in advanced production technologies. Through research, experimentation, and advanced training, it supports technology-based innovation in both public and private organisations. This initiative aims to enhance skills in the development, adoption, and implementation of advanced production technologies, fostering sustainable competitiveness within the context of the circular economy.

    • Live demonstrations of ERP+ proALPHA with the Swiss Smart Factory, showcasing a product configurator for drones and innovative industrial processes.

    • Rollomatic's innovation cell at SIPBB collaborates with academic and industry-oriented research labs, offering Bachelor and Master projects to students in various fields.

    • Integration of research centers like Swiss Smart Factory enables Rollomatic to undertake concrete industrial projects.

    • Rollomatic's SIPBB office, located 15 kilometers from their headquarters, offers a unique opportunity to engage with both French and German-speaking students in the region.

SUPSI Mini Factory

Location
Lugano, Switzerland

The SUPSI Mini-Factory is a dynamic learning environment that embodies the principles of Industry 4.0, emphasizing hands-on training and technological experimentation. It operates as an automated production and assembly system, where students apply the fundamentals of Industry 4.0 through practical experience. The SUPSI Mini-Factory is a real-world learning environment that combines practical experience, technology innovation, and interdisciplinary collaboration, making it a valuable asset for both educational and research purposes.

    • Customisable Production: The Mini-Factory offers a customisable production process, enabling personalised orders and demonstrating remarkable adaptability and resilience.

      Hardware and Software Integration: The facility is equipped with a range of hardware and software components, including robots, RFID systems, and machine vision, to create an integrated and highly automated production environment.

      Hands-On Learning: The Mini-Factory serves as a hands-on learning environment, providing students with practical training and interdisciplinary activities to develop competencies in real-world manufacturing.

      Applied Research: Beyond education, the Mini-Factory supports applied research by offering an environment to study, test, and deploy fully automated and modular solutions, fostering innovation in modern industries.

Smart & Sustainable Manufacturing Factory

Location
O Porriño (Pontevedra) Spain

The Smart and Sustainable Manufacturing Factory has been designed as a lighthouse that provides industrial showrooms, validation and in-situ training to showcase the benefits of using digital technologies for circular economy and sustainable manufacturing adoption across value chains.  It fosters technology-driven innovation by integrating connectivity and interoperability, robotics and cutting-edge automation, edge computing and data-driven analytics and Generative AI, driving continuous innovation. The showrooms function as open-access, general-purpose testbeds, ensuring scalability and replicability in the EU manufacturing landscape.

    • Human Centric Circularity Initiatives: Robot-based WEEE disassembly and remanufacturing cells supporting sustainability and circularity. Smart and sustainable manufacturing robot cells for material processing and disassembly. Additionally, human perception technologies for pose estimation, tracking, and monitoring applications have been developed.

    • Hands-on training and workforce upskilling: Providing on-site technology, training, upskilling courses as well as demonstration services, and R&D opportunities to enhance digital adoption in EU companies.

    • Data monitoring & digitalisation: Advancing Industry 4.0 through real-time monitoring, process digitalisation, and seamless data interoperability. These capabilities drive smarter decision-making, optimise manufacturing efficiency, and promote sustainability across industrial operations.

    • Data-driven and generative AI for decision support: Leveraging AI-driven insights to assist operators in decision-making, incorporating sustainability indicators and contributing to Circular Economy strategies. This enables more efficient resource utilisation, waste reduction, and the development of intelligent, sustainable production models.

Website

CIRC - EV

Location
Milano, Italy

Contact point
Marcello Colledani

CIRC-eV is the first European laboratory dedicated to the Circular Factory concept. It integrates disassembly, testing, reassembly and recycling of materials within the same structure, to design and enable sustainable circular economy solutions for the e-mobility sector. The laboratory uses a pilot factory and integrates technologies related to the mechanical handling, testing and pre-treatment of lithium-ion batteries from electric mobility. CIRC-eV has 3 main functional areas, and each is a group of processes and related physical technologies that contribute to the implementation of a specific function: the Mechanical processes area, which performs the operations that regenerate second-life modules through the reuse of cells and material recovery; the Li-Ion cell testing area, which tests modules and cells and analyses residual properties and second-life applications in automotive modules or stationary applications; the data analysis and modelling area, which enables the flow of information to the processes implemented in the other areas, through advanced data collection, modelling and simulation techniques.

    • Development and technological and financial feasibility studies of circular economy strategies (disassembly, recycling and reconditioning) of high added value products. 

    • Study and development of procedures and protocols for testing of residual properties of modules and individual cells from Li-Ion batteries. 

    • Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) studies to quantify the impact related to the developed circular economy strategies. 

    • Study and analysis of specific second-life strategies and applications, according to the product’s state of health. 

    • Development of re-design solutions for products and components to favour circular business models with higher added value. 

    • Study of reverse logistics to support the introduction of the circular business model enabled by CIRC-eV solutions.