Exchange on digitalization for sustainable production

The first day of the meeting was dedicated to the activities of the past year. Fraunhofer researchers presented the five studies conducted at ICNAP in 2022 to all community members: “Pricing Models for Industrial Data”, “Digital Infrastructures for Sustainable Production”, “Real-Time Digital Twin”, “Cybersecurity” and “Industrial Data Spaces for a Flexible Data-Driven Production”. After the presentation of results, community members were able to ask the researchers questions about potential applications of the results and talk directly with them.

A change in management at ICNAP 

After two years, there will now be a change in the ICNAP team: The previous Community Manager Karl Lossie will be superseded by digitization expert Alexander Kies, who has plans to further expand the community in 2023: “We want to be the leading hub of research and industry to digitize and connect end-to-end value chains.” 

New research topics chosen by the community

The progress of the seven ICNAP working groups was presented by experts in small discussion groups. Suggestions and questions from the community are going to be addressed in the working groups in the coming year. The most important item on the agenda of the annual meeting was the selection of new study topics: Through short presentations and a subsequent poster exhibition, researchers from the Fraunhofer Institutes presented their ideas for new studies. Five of them were selected by the community members: ”Industrialization of Artificial Intelligence in Production”, “The Digital Twin Demonstrator - Bringing the Concept to Life”, “Realizing Plug & Produce on the Store Floor”, “Innovative Power Solutions for Wireless Sensor Networks” and “Energy Monitoring System for Industrial Manufacturing”. Fraunhofer researchers will conduct these studies next year in collaboration with the companies and research partners of ICNAP and the results will be published in a detailed study report, as they were last year.