European Plastics Industry (1,45 million employees;> 60.000 companies, most SMEs; turnover 320 billion €), as the rest of EU Industry, is at the beginning of a new industrial revolution, “INDUSTRY 4.0”, a group of rapid transformations in the design, manufacture, operation and service of manufacturing systems and products It holds the promise of increased flexibility in manufacturing, mass customization, increased speed, better quality and improved productivity. Major opportunities for Plastic Industry are, among others; • Integration of supplier and customersand the much closer interlinking of internal departments and processes. • Production of individualized, customized parts and the shortening of development, start-up and set-up times, enabling even small batch sizes to be produced economically. SMEs have real obstaclesto implement “INDUSTRY 4.0”.If they are overcome, it may help to reverse the past decline in industrialization and increase total value added from manufacturing to a targeted 20% of all value added by 2020.Changing business modelsand skills mismatches are among the major challenges(EPRS. European Parliamentary Research Service)in additionto need for investment, data issues, legal questions of liability and intellectual property or standards. European SMEs must take action and develop the necessary framework conditions necessary for its successful adoption (How will the industry 4.0 transformations affect SMEs in Germany by 2030?. HFU University) Moving to INDUSTRY 4.0will need precise steps and a clear prioritization. It’s critical to provide clear leadership from the top management, as first step of implementation of Industry 4.0, before incurring in investments and embark the company on a journey that starts small but ends ultimately in a transformation of the core business Summarizing, for a successful adaptation to the Industry 4.0 framework, Managers of Plastic Industry must evaluate its impact on their companies, adapt its Business Model and develop a medium term Innovation Strategic Plan for the implementation of the proper and applicable innovations. 4zeroPlast is launched with the main objective of increasing the competences (attitudes, skills, knowledge) of Managers of the Plastic Industry SMEsabout how to evaluate and plan the applicability of Industry 4.0 to their business, through an innovative training program The project has the next specific objectives: • Understanding theapplicability of Industry 4.0 technologies to Plastic SMEs • Evaluating of the impact of Industry 4.0 technologies in the Business Model of Plastic SMEs • Development of Innovation Strategic Plans for the implementation of Industry 4.0 in Plastic SMEs Through the execution of this Project the next results will be obtained; • Co-Created MethodologicalGuide (I.O.1) will be developed, with the direct participation of End Users, with the main objective of determining the key contents; methodologies and tools needed for creating and improving the critical competences of Managers of Plastic SMEs for evaluating and planningthe applicability of Industry 4.0 to their business. • Training Packageaddressed to Managers of Plastic SMEs for evaluating and planningthe applicability of Industry 4.0 to their business. This will include: - Training Materials; Written materials, case studies, complementary readings, videos…addresses to trainees and trainers - Design of Practical Training Methodology; Trainers Materials withdescription of training methodology and guidelines for its implementation • “Guided Learning App Tool” (I.O.3)will be developed for iOS and Android tablets..The system will provide information that allows the user to deepen in the particular application of Industry 4.0 to their own company, facilitating the understanding of the concepts and providing training itineraries that lead to an action plan in a real scenario (“work-based learning”) that can be embodied in the tool and supervised by the trainer. • Development of an e-Training Platform (I.O.4), for supporting the implementation of the Training Methodology, including Training Materials, Workspace and link to“Guided Learning App Tool”. • Creation of 3 4ZEROPLASTUNITS in the Plastics Associations belonging to the Consortium in order to ensure the sustainable exploitation of the project after the project lifetime. • Development of Dissemination Actions addressed to the European collective related to Plastic Industry SMEs. 4ZEROPLAST will benefit a number of persons during the project lifetime: • 50 Managers of Plastic SMEs from Spain, Portugal and Italy (total of 50 distributed in the 3 countries in the same proportion) will be trained through their participation in the pilot validation actions. • 1.500 professionals of Plastic Industry (500 in Spain, Portugal, Italy) and other stakeholders (experts, suppliers, associations…) will be aware, through multiplier events and dissemination actions to be carried on through the project website, newsletters,
After a little more than 2 years the 4Zeroplast project has been successfully completed and validated in the 3 project partner countries: Portugal, Italy and Spain. The participating entities were: 3 associations from the plastics sector: AVEP (ES), PROPLAST (IT), Pool-Net (PT); 1 university: POLIMI (IT); 1 technology centre: CENTIMFE (PT) and 1 private company: NUNSYS (ES). In total 51 managers (17 per participating country) have validated it and it is now available for companies in the sector to download and use the APP for free and get their personalised report. What are you going to learn? - Training Materials A training program was developed, aimed at strengthening the skills of Managers in the Plastics Industry (SMEs) for them to be able to take on new business models and challenges launched by Industry 4.0 and to assist them in evaluating and planning the applicability of I4.0 in their business. The 4ZeroPlast training program will be facilitated through a guided learning APP supported on an e-learning platform. The training is based in MOOC - Massive Open Online Course and follows a collaborative learning approach supported in training itineraries adapted to the pace of each trainee. The structure of the MOOC consists of case studies, informative micro-pills, and various reference materials, facilitating the learning and integration of knowledge. The case studies consist of video contributions with interviews of experts from companies providing their testimonials strongly related to the application of Industry 4.0 to plastics. The micro-pills are short videos introducing sub-topics which are deemed as essential for the comprehension of the topic and for better understanding of reference materials. Reference materials are training materials such as papers, videos, documents, and infographics that the students can use to delve deeper into specific topics. The training materials are available in English, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. The training lasts about 3 weeks and the course is divided into 3 modules, as follows: -M1: Impact of I.4.0 in Plastic SMEs -M2: Basis of I.4.0 -M3: Strategy Innovation Management Each module is composed of 4 main topics structured in learning units with a duration of one week each. Participants will be able to validate their knowledge on specific topics through an inquiry while always being able to reinforce their learning on the e-Learning platform. After that, students should complete a diagnosis to understand the current situation of their company regarding digitalization. Once the training is finished trainees will obtain a personalized Report, supporting the definition of the strategy and applicability of I.4.0 within their company. WHERE? - e-learning platform The training course for managers of the plastics industry is provided through an e-learning platform that uses Moodle as LMS (Learning Management System). It contains 1 Moodle course organized into 4 sections, the content of which is filtered by language. There are 4 languages available: English, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. The language chosen by the user also affects the interface translation. The user ID required to access the platform can be obtained free of charge by registering on the 4zeroPlast APP; users may then access the “E-learning” section of interest. All operations are managed by the APP using a Single Sign On protocol, HOW? - the APP tool The 4ZeroPlast project required a highly customized technical solution in order to provide a feasible and state of the art tool that would help CEOs and other C-suite staff in plastics companies to learn, evaluate their knowledge, and diagnose the state of their company regarding I.4.0. In this regard, it was clear to us that in order to make it a suitable solution we had to create a mobile APP that users were able to use "on the go", but also with a process that was as easy as possible to use, so non-technical users could easily navigate the process. Thus, we created a back-end infrastructure based on the programming language Python, with the framework Django. This is one of the most modern and flexible frameworks for backend development in current times. This back-end has an administration dashboard where admin users can edit the translations of the questions that appear on the mobile APPs, but mainly, it serves to follow-up on the user registrations and validation process, in order to analyze if users are getting into the APP and using it. This back-end has been put together with API's in order to provide the data to the APPs. These APPs were developed in a native way both for Android and IOS to guarantee full compatibility with the largest possible number of users and devices. The entire infrastructure is hosted in a Tier3+ Data Center in order to guarantee the greatest availability in time and security levels for the tool. Do you want to dive deep into Industry 4.0? Download the APP from the official stores: GOOGLE PLAY and APP STORE