Meeting of the partners of the European consortium FACTS4WORKERS

The large scale European research project “FACTS4WORKERS” with a project volume of 7.9 million Euros and 15 European research partners over a time span of four years deals with the topic of “Industry 4.0” and focuses on the human component of modern production. The consortium lead by VIRTUAL VEHICLE Research Center wants to show, how to create attractive and intelligent work places in a factory of the future and how therefore Europe can be boosted as a production location. Improved training and increase of investment in factories will help bring Europe new and better jobs.
Production is moving constantly away from European high-wage countries to so-called “best-cost” countries or to locations with low energy cost. To fight this trend the European industry is challenged to develop intelligent added-value concepts for the field of production. The EU-commission wants to reverse “the shrinking role of the industry” and restore the “attractiveness of Europe as a production location”, says the responsible commissioner Antonio Tajani. With more investment in factories and research & development the amount the industry contributes to the European economic output should be increased from currently 15 to 20 per cent by 2020.
A large-scale research project now puts the worker into to the centre of future-oriented production concepts in order to render manufacturing jobs more attractive and help Europe to become more competitive. As of December 1st 2014 the VIRTUAL VEHICLE Research Center in Graz coordinates the project “Worker Centric Workspaces in Smart Factories (in short “FACT4WORKERS”). The four year long research initiative is being funded through Horizon 2020, which is a EU funding programme for research and innovation of the European Commission, running from 2014 to 2020.
Beside SiEVA the partners in the project are: VIRTUAL VEHICLE RESEARCH CENTER (AUT), HIDRIA TC (SLO), UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI FIRENZE (ITA), TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT WIEN (AUT), THYSSEN KRUPP STEEL EUROPE (NEM), HIDRIA ROTOMATIKA (SLO), IMINDS (BEL), UNIVERSITY OF ZÜRICH (ŠVI), THERMOLYMPIC (ŠPA), EMO ORODJARNA (SLO), EVOLARIS NEXT LEVEL (AUT), INSTITUTO TECNOLÓGICO DE ARAGÓN (ŠPA), SCHAEFFLER TECHNOLOGIES (NEM), LAPPEENRANTA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY (FIN).