Denmark will digitalise its manufacturing industry to compete globally with an investment of DKK 196m from Innovation Fund Denmark, 49 companies, five universities, three GTS-Institutes and the Confederation of Danish Industry. The project is headed by MADE – Manufacturing Academy of Denmark, with the purpose of strengthening Danish manufacturing with new knowledge and digital technology.
The name of the new collaboration is MADE Digital. Scientist and practitioners from the companies will work together closely to develop and implement digital solutions, tailor-made to the specific needs of Danish manufacturing companies. Innovation Fund Denmark supports this initiative by investing DKK 79m.
– With this new investment, we will create more or less a Danish national team of digitalisation. It enables a strong and coordinated Danish digital development where particularly SMEs can gain knowledge of the latest technological possibilities and develop their business from A to Z. We simply need to bring manufacturing into the digital age and create new growth and jobs, says Peter Høngaard Andersen, CEO of Innovation Fund Denmark.
From 2017 to 2019 MADE Digital will launch 30 digital research projects in areas in need of new solutions. The ambition of future digital factories will include robots which cooperate directly with people and machines which communicate directly with machines in digital supply chains In addition, augmented reality will be used to train employees and service machines, and digital design will make product development fast and accurate. Furthermore, a series of promising innovation projects are being launched.
– The aim of the project is to provide new knowledge through research and help large-scale companies and SMEs to implement the digital solutions. Particularly SMEs need help to assess which part of the factory will gain most from digitalisation. Therefore, we will offer projects specifically targeted at SMEs. This will secure productivity and increase growth for the companies, says Nigel Edmondson, Director of MADE.
MADE Digital is based on a Danish version of Industry 4.0, a term originated in Germany. Whilst the German approach is based mainly on large industry sectors and a series of very large-scale companies, MADE Digital will be tailor-made for Danish conditions. Many companies in Denmark are amongst the best in the world in their niche. MADE Digital builds on these strengths and combines precisely this diversity. Companies such as Danish Crown, Danfoss and Danchell are not competitors, enabling them to share knowledge when collaborating with the best research teams in the country and machine builders such as SCAPE, Technicon and CorePath Robotics to develop new robotic solutions.
