SupplHi awarded a co-financing by SMACT, the Competence Centre for innovation in Industry 4.0 supported by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development

Milan – May 18^th, 2020

In May 2020, SupplHi has been awarded a co-financing grant by SMACT, the Competence Centre for innovation in Industry 4.0 supported by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development.
The co-financing supports B2BEST’s project by SupplHi, for the creation of a “social network” where – through SupplHi and similarly to B2C – Buyers can provide immediate Performance Evaluations on a specific equipment or service and share it in a secure network of Buyers.
This grant – after the successful application to a dedicated call – allows for further R&D investments by SupplHi, with possibility to perform additional pilots on this innovative module of the platform with new Clients.

COLLABORATION BETWEEN RESEARCH AND BUSINESS IN INDUSTRY 4.0

SMACT scpa (www.smact.cc) is the company established by 40 public and private bodies to manage the highly specialized Competence Center of Triveneto, dedicated to collaborations between research and business in Industry 4.0. One of SMACT’s areas of work is to promote the implementation of innovation, industrial research and experimental development projects proposed by companies.

The Italian Ministry of Economic Development is currently supporting the candidacy of the 8 Competence Centers created in Italy to the European Digital Innovation Hubs. In fact, the Ministry of Economic Development recognizes the right model of aggregation in terms of innovation and digitalisation 4.0 in Competence Centers, which have been active for over a year throughout the country.
The acronym SMACT refers to the 5 technologies in which the Competence Center is responsible: Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud e Internet of Things.

The founding members of SMACT are:

• 8 universities in the Triveneto (Padova, Verona, Ca’ Foscari, IUAV, Trento, Bolzano, Udine and SISSA of Trieste);
• two research bodies (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare and Fondazione Bruno Kessler);
  the Chamber of Commerce of Padova;
• 29 private companies: ACCA software, Adige, Brovedani Group, CAREL Industries, Corvallis, Danieli & C. Officine Meccaniche, DBA lab, Electrolux Italia, EnginSoft, Eurosystem, Gruppo PAM, Innovation Factory, Intesa Sanpaolo, Keyline, Lean Experience Factory, Microtec, Miriade, Omitech, Optoelettronica Italia, OVS, SAVE, Schneider Electric, TEXA, TFM Automotive & Industry, Thetis, TIM, Umana, Wartsila Italia, Como Next.

SUPPLHI’S B2BEST PROJECT AWARDED BY SMACT

B2BEST project has the objective to transform industrial B2B (€33 trillion at global level, or 19% of the world’s GDP in 2017) in a reputation economy where – through SupplHi and similarly to B2C – Buyers can provide immediate Performance Evaluations on a specific equipment or service and share it in a network of Buyers – as a “social network” of the supply chain.

Industrial players typically procure up to 80% of their revenues and – due to the lack of shared data on supply’s quality, delivery times, behaviour and HSE – the selection of Vendors is mainly price-driven and embeds high risks. Furthermore – B2BEST, being an industry-wide customer satisfaction tool, allows Vendors to know where to improve to better satisfy industry needs and increase their competitiveness.

The standard model of B2BEST is based on international best practices in Vendor Performance Evaluation, focused on simplicity in the logics and automatization of the inputs through APIs with ERP allows to seize B2B’s complexity making data comparable and sharable to visualize trends of Vendors’ performances.

To know more about the industry-shared “Vendor Performance Evaluation“ module of the SupplHi platform that is at the basis of B2BEST, please visit: https://www.supplhi.com/solutions/buyer/vendor-performance-evaluation-industry-shared/

THE CALL FOR CO-FINANCING

SMACT has been the first Italian Competence Center to publish a call – at the end of September 2019 – for innovative Industry 4.0 projects.
Each company could apply for up to two innovative project proposals which, leveraging one or more of SMACT’s coveted technologies (Social networks, Mobile Platforms & Apps, Advanced Analytics and Big Data, Cloud computing, Internet of Things), aimed at optimizing the production processes (higher quality of the final product and reduction of the operating costs of the production plants), at product improvement and innovation, with greater speed from the prototype to the production and the market, to the innovation of business models and organizational in favour of global corporate competitiveness.

The projects submitted, eligible for the contribution, must include:

1. a concrete intervention plan, detailed in investments, costs, times;

2. the estimate of the economic benefits for the company in terms of reducing inefficiencies, waste and costs, also in terms of improving the quality of processes and products;

3. the preparation of a financial plan to cover the costs of the project.

4. a level of technological maturity (Technology Readiness Level, TRL) in an interval between TRL 5 and 8 and which in any case reaches, at the end of the activities, a level at least equal to TRL 7.

The candidacy phase closed on 29 November and there were 51 nominations for a value equal to three and a half times the available financial allocation. The independent evaluation commission shortlisted projects deemed excellent by the committee and in March 2020 opened the negotiation phase, which consisted in addressing the documentary and financial part of the projects and in aligning the needs of the private company with the University research groups.”

The following 17 projects have been eligible for the co-financing of the grant. For more information, please refer to www.smact.cc/progetti-di-innovazione: