Good practice:

Open Platform for the Adoption of Digital Innovation

An open platform for technology adoption coordinates the collaboration of technology / service providers and end-users to showcase, test, customize and/or develop new digital technologies in an interorganisational network, addressing the needs of the technology users. The platform helps SME to become more competitive due to the use of digital technologies. The platform is coordinated by a neutral instance (e.g. non-profit research organisation), which acts as facilitator for the collaboration providing:
• confidence among the partners
• increasing visibility and support public relations, and
• providing specific service for demonstration, test and development of technologies in an interorganizational network.
The platform supports:
• exchange of best practises between technology / service providers and technology end-users
• support the ideation process using workshop and showcasing the state-of-the technology available on the platform
• support for the design, customization and testing of digital technology in a step-by-step approach: from the idea to the proof-of-concepts / digital experiment to the prototyping and the industrialisation.
• During the course of this development process, the role of the neutral instance will be steadily reduced, while commercial, industrial partners will overtake more and more responsibilities until the state of commercial industrialisation is reached.

Personal resources:
o 1 coordinator
o 2+ technicians / engineers
Infrastructure:
o Showroom and workshop (> 200 m2)
Network to relevant actors from industry

KPI for verification at Swiss Smart Factory:
• Number of platform partners: Swiss Smart Factory has collected within two years more than 50 paying technology partners joining the platform, among these partners such as SIEMENS, FESTO, DASSAULT, FANUC, YASKAWA, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC, BALLUFF, HILSCHER, etc.
• Number of projects of technology adoption: Swiss Smart Factory has performed several projects for technology adoption and test in 2019 e.g. with BALLUFF, HILSCHER, SIEMENS, TROTEC, etc.

Building up, maintaining and upgrading a technology platform is a challenging task as it must be ensured that the technical infrastructure is always up-to-date and ready for demonstrations and tests.

This best practise addresses very typical challenges of SMEs that can be found in any region across Europe. The best practice is designed to be rather generic and must be adapted to regional, industrial needs (e.g. specialisation on specific sectors). The political and industrial support in the region is key for the successful implementation of this best practise.