Workshop organized by

Zenepe Satka, Mälardalen University, Sweden, Anna Friebe, Mälardalen University, Sweden, Thomas Nolte, Mälardalen University, Sweden.

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Workshop type

Full-day workshop.

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Focus

The workshop addresses key technological, methodological, and operational challenges related to the digital transformation of industrial systems, with a particular emphasis on achieving higher levels of flexibility, intelligence, and resilience in future production environments. The overall objective is to enhance the level of digitalisation and automation in industry by: (1) improving the flexibility of automation systems and solutions, (2) advancing the application and automation of robotics and control, and (3) strengthening digital infrastructures. These efforts aim to create smarter, more reconfigurable industrial environments with higher resilience, to meet future operational demands.
By integrating academic and industrial expertise, this workshop aims to address real-world challenges, promote knowledge and technology transfer, and generate practical solutions for diverse industrial applications. Industry experts will share experience and challenges in several areas contributing to industrial transformation through advanced technologies. Areas include automation strategies to support customized production and assembly, ensuring greater adaptability and efficiency in modern manufacturing environments.
Another area is the use of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR), particularly for transporting consumables from storage to machine cells. In addition, the integration of DevOps principles in production systems is presented. The discussion emphasizes how the practices developed for IT environments are increasingly being adapted to operational technology (OT) domains to shorten development cycles, reduce downtime and support more responsive reconfiguration of production assets. Furthermore, intelligent monitoring is discussed, especially machine learning for anomaly detection in embedded systems. Strategies and challenges in combining hard real-time control with orthogonal functionality such as advanced data analytics are also presented. Furthermore, discussions regarding the strategies for reliable industrial automation systems that support sensor-to-cloud data exchange through Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) are also present.
From the academic side, an overview of redundancy in industrial networks is provided, with a historical perspective and a glimpse into the future. In addition, perspectives and contribution in the workshop areas are given from the multidisciplinary research institute INESC TEC in Portugal, in the scope of the European Resilience and Recovery Mechanism. These insights highlight how academic research is aligning with Europe’s broader strategic goals in digitalization, resilience, and sustainable industrial transformation. Furthermore, some of the speakers from the industry are also engaged in academia pursuing their industrial PhD which strengthens the link between research and industrial problems, ensuring that the workshop benefits from both theoretical advances and practical industrial experience.
Lastly, the workshop will be concluded with an extensive panel discussion where some of the speakers are invited to discuss the future of automation and digitalization for flexible production, as well as instruments for mutually beneficial co-production with academia and industry. The panel discussion will be organized in such a way to allow space for each panelist from leading manufacturing companies to discuss the current state and potential challenges when it comes to flexible and smart production systems. The discussion is intended not only to provide strategic insights but also to inspire new collaborative initiatives that support the evolution of smart manufacturing. In addition, the organizers intend to incorporate the workshop findings into an IES magazine publication presenting the identified challenges in automation and digitalization for flexible production systems.

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Topics under this workshop include:

• Modular and reconfigurable production systems
• Digitalisation and Automation for Flexible and Customized Production
• Intelligent Monitoring, Diagnostics, and Anomaly Detection
• Advanced Data Analytics and Control Methods
• Mobile and Autonomous Systems in Production Environments
• Robust and Reliable Industrial Communication Networks

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Contact for more details

If you would like to know more about the workshop, please contact Zenepe Satka (zenepe.satka@mdu.se).