A Horizon Europe-funded project that promoted the adoption of “AI-at-the-edge” systems and their integration into human-centric production environments.
The Regions and (E)DIHs alliance for AI-at-the-Edge adoption by European Industry 5.0 Manufacturing SMEs (AI REDGIO 5.0) project, launched in 2023 and coordinated by the Manufacturing Group of the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering of Politecnico di Milano, has officially come to an end.
The initiative, which involved 42 partners from 16 European countries, was driven by the goal of strengthening industrial competitiveness through interregional cooperation. In particular, the project was inspired by the principles promoted by the Vanguard Initiative (https://www.s3vanguardinitiative.eu/), which fosters collaboration among advanced European regions to develop innovation-driven value chains. In this context, these principles were translated into experimentation activities focused on the adoption of AI-at-the-edge solutions in manufacturing environments, meaning solutions installed directly on machinery or at production sites, capable of analysing data in real time without the need to transfer it to external systems.
To give greater visibility to the experimentation activities and increase the visibility and impact of the project’s technical and scientific results, AI REDGIO 5.0 complemented its research activities with the development of two dedicated networks: one composed of European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs), organisations in direct contact with local SMEs that support business innovation at regional level, and another linked to Testing and Experimentation Facilities (TEFs), specialised centres for pre-competitive research, that is, the phase preceding the market deployment of technologies.
Project activities also focused on the deployment of artificial intelligence systems on edge devices, that is enabling faster response times and higher reliability when compared to more “distant” cloud-based solutions. At the same time, these technologies were leveraged to support the design of safer and human-centric working environments, in line with the principles of “Industry 5.0” and in response to Europe’s demographic challenges, which make human workers an increasingly critical resource in manufacturing systems.
In this framework, the experimental activities of the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering of Politecnico di Milano were carried out at the Marco Garetti Laboratory, where the availability of technologies aimed at designing human-centric production processes and environments provided an ideal testbed for validating the project’s scientific results under the supervision of prof. Marco Taisch, as principal investigator of the project.
On top of laboratory experimentations, the Manufacturing Group developed a set of methodologies and tools handed over policy makers and working groups, including: a framework for the management of EDIHs and their collaboration (METODIH); an updated version of the 6P maturity model (a tool that assesses the level of development and innovation of companies across six key dimensions), aligned with the principles of “Industry 5.0”; and a training programme for upskilling and reskilling targeting the integration of the skills required by the future of manufacturing into its workers’ curricula.
For more information, please visit the official project website (https://www.airedgio5-0.eu/) and the dedicated European Commission page (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101092069/it).