Better Factory

Better Factory revolves around 16 art-driven experiments in which manufacturing SME’s, artist and technology suppliers collaborate to develop new and personalized products, while reflecting and contributing to a more efficient, green and robotics/ software enabled manufacturing process.

The project is significant because it acknowledges artists as motors for industrial innovation. We want to make sure they were right.

Domain

Manufacturing

Project page on starts.eu

Details

About

Better Factory provides a methodology for manufacturing SMEs to collaborate with artists to develop new and personalized products. At the same time, it supplies technology for SMEs to become cyber-physical systems, transforming them into lean-agile production facilities capable of manufacturing new and personalised products along with existing ones in collaboration with technology suppliers.

Manufacturers can tap into disruptive product innovation that responds to new market demands while keeping production resources optimal. Better Factory helps manufacturers to enter new markets with customizable, personalized product or service portfolio. Together with Business and Arts Mentors, artists and technology partners, manufacturers can discover new business models and digitalise their factories to match the production of new or personalized products.

Better Factory KTEs

Our Role

In4Art is involved in this project as partner and steward of the art-driven experimentation and innovation process, supporting the APPS developers to achieve impact in the SMEs and supporting the artists from the earliest stages of matchmaking to the final outcomes and next steps.

Read the article on our role in the project.

Better Factory at Transylvanian Clusters International Week 2022

Artist/s

Sara Alvarez, Frederik de Wilde, Nicola Ellis, Jesse Howard, Isaac Monté, Gareth Neal, Tomas Libertiny, David Rickard, Anna Dumitriu, Gilbert Sinnott, Kristina Pulejkova, Anna Walicka, Govert Flint, Nick Ervinck, Sébastien Wierinck, Javier Masa.

Meet the artists (Round 1)

Meet the artists (Round 2)

Partners

The consortium includes 28 partners from 18 European countries: Fraunhofer IPA / AIMEN / Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana / Slovakia National Centre of Robotic / INESCTEC / Cyprus University of Technology / Transylvanian Furniture Cluster / Slovenian Tool and Die Development Centre / Latvian Federation of Food Companies – Food Products Quality Cluster / CLUTEX ‐ Klastr Technicke Textilie /  Bydgoszcz Industrial Cluster Tool Valley / Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Pécs‐Baranya / ICT Cluster / University of Oulu / Top Data Science / Holonix / GESTALT Robotics / European Dynamics / Hermia Yrityskehitys Oy / INOVA / GLUON / WAAG / FundingBox / time.lex / Mobile World Capital Barcelona

Duration

October 2020 – September 2024

Investment

€ 8.576.164

Credits

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 951813.

More about S+T+ARTS

S+T+ARTS is about thinking out of the box and building bridges between Science, Technology and Arts.

STARTS is an initiative of the European Commission to foster alliances of science, technology, and the arts, that effectively implement a European approach to technological innovation centered on human needs and values.

Science, Technology and Arts form a nexus with an extraordinarily high potential for creative and reflective innovation.And such innovation is considered to be precisely what is called for to master the social, ecological and economic challenges that Europe is facing.

With disruptive methods of exploration and an accurate critical eye on the use of technology, artists decisively raise awareness of the societal challenges and global concerns we are tackling. The artistic practices are seen as innovative processes and have a wide-reaching potential to contribute to the development of new economic, social and business models.