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Digitalisation of Future Energy

FAR – Future Automation Region

AR 4.0 is a platform where small, medium and large companies, academia and the public sector come together in common, intersectoral and interdisciplinary projects.

Concluded

Start

2016-04-01

Conclusion

2020-03-31

Project manager at MDU

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Background

Automation Region 4.0 (S 4.0) is a virtual and physical platform where small and medium-sized enterprises face major companies, academia and the public sector in common, intersectoral and interdisciplinary projects. Here sustainable and innovative solutions that meet our major societal challenges are created and developed. In an increasingly automated world, the human role strengthened and we are taking important steps towards ecological and social balance. AR 4.0 is for the automation industry what Paris was once for artists - a place to gather at, this is where it happens!

Industry and society is in a phase where the benefits of earlier technological innovations decreases while the information is an increasingly important strategic resource in industrial production. Digitization is about more than technology. The study "Third Way Automation" highlights the ability to make available and to create value of technology in a global perspective, but nationally important industry sectors. From a Swedish perspective, it may be seen as a threat, but also as an opportunity. We are facing a fourth industrial revolution where the predecessors were the steam engine, electrification and the early computers in the 1970s and 80s. The VINNOVA Report 2015: 4 "Future Smart Industry", illustrated the technical development as S-curves, where the industry and the community is now facing a leap to the next curve.

A collaborative platform for interdisciplinary projects

AR 4.0 is a platform where small, medium and large companies, academia and the public sector come together in common, intersectoral and interdisciplinary projects.

Purpose and goals

The project's renewal lies in that AR 4.0 develops a system-changing structure, where the most important innovation is to focus on the innovation system from a societal challenge perspective and where AR 4.0 provides support for current needs but also creates opportunities to develop and meet the needs that have not yet been identified.

AR 4.0 will work to promote and lead the renewal of the region by meeting short-term expressed needs and longer-term unspoken needs with a focus on methods that promote innovation, such as investments in diversity and business models based on circular economy.

The project will also develop technology and systems expertise through R & I projects, test beds, demonstrators, intelligence and systematic search for best practices for adopting social challenges from an automation perspective.