Digital and intelligent reindustrialisation took centre stage in Porto – with an Open Day at INESC TEC

As part of the week dedicated to National Production Technologies, the PRODUTECH R3 Summit brought together diverse stakeholders from the Mobilising Agenda – featuring an Open Day at INESC TEC’s laboratory focused on Advanced Production Technologies.

The validity of the collaborative model adopted, and the technological maturity of several demonstrators were key topics at the PRODUTECH R3 Summit, an event held under the PRR PRODUTECH R3 Mobilising Agenda. It served to review the progress of ongoing activities, share results, and, above all, foster collaboration between the different entities involved.

At the event, which took place on July 1 in Porto, Pedro Senna, Head of Business Development for industry-related areas (TEC4Industry), highlighted the participation of entities like the National Innovation Agency (ANI) and the Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (IAPMEI) – emphasising the “public support for industrial transformation based on technology developed in Portugal.”

Another noteworthy moment was the round table “From Strategy to Action”, which enabled a discussion on practical barriers to technology adoption, as well as on technological trends for boosting competitiveness. The panel – which included representatives from INESC TEC, the Navigator Company, SONAE MC, and Kaizen Institute – was moderated by Pedro Senna, also a researcher in enterprise systems engineering. António Almeida, a researcher at INESC TEC and coordinator of the industrial engineering and management area, took the opportunity to emphasise “the role of experimentation and interoperability as critical success factors.”

The event concluded with a presentation of results; according to Pedro Senna, “we witnessed significant progress was evident in areas like automated palletisation, production planning, picking systems and autonomous forklifts.” Together with other partners, INESC TEC was responsible for technical contributions, reflecting the contribution to the development of many of the solutions showcased, in fields like Artificial Intelligence, computer vision, simulation, robotics, and 5G communications.

The initiative, held during the week dedicated to National Production Technologies, brought together around 250 participants, including representatives from industrial companies, technology providers, higher education institutions, public bodies and intermunicipal organisations.

INESC TEC’s participation in the event extended to the following day, with an Open Day at the INESC TEC Industry and Innovation Laboratory (iiLab), co-promoted with NOS, aimed at providing an “immersive technological demonstration experience”.

The Institute welcomed visiting companies and organisations to the facilities, where they could observe, among other things, the dedicated 5G network designed to support extreme use cases, such as pallet mosaic preparation; automatic truck loading, installed in partnership with NOS; electronic tag identification solutions for positioning and monitoring in distribution warehouses (RFId), in partnership with AZITEK; prototypes of autonomous forklifts with remote control in virtual reality; and demonstrators featuring AMRs integrated into a bi-directional Digital Twin system – in partnership with Infinite Foundry and Flowbotic –, with simulated logistics flows supported by real-time empirical data.

Pedro Senna described the initiative as “extremely positive”, “both in terms of the technological content demonstrated and the interaction between researchers, technical staff and decision-makers from the participating companies.” According to the researcher, the event helped consolidate the idea that “the technological solutions developed are viable and are being tested in real-world environments”, and that “collaboration between industrial and technological partners is producing above-average results.”

“The technical leadership and integration capacity” of INESC TEC were, according to Pedro Senna, “decisive for the success of the Products, Processes or Services (PPS) in which INESC TEC participates, with recognised impact both by industrial partners and by funding entities.”