Innoskart Digital Innovation Hub from Innoskart Digital Cluster

The Innoskart ICT Cluster was established in 2006 as a classic cluster to support the innovative cooperation of SMEs in the Central Transdanubia Region of Hungary. The structure and scope of activities of the cluster and the cluster management body have been constantly evolving over the years, since 2019 it has been using the name Innoskart Digital Cluster. Today, as a result of its networking activities, it already operates as a Digital Innovation Center.

As a cluster, it has the Hungarian „Accredited Innovation Cluster” certification and the European level Silver Label certification. In 2021, the cluster has 54 members, mainly SMEs, as well as local governments and a university knowledge centers.

Innoskart’s mission
Supporting digitization by facilitating dialogue, knowledge and technology transfer between service and user companies. It plays an “interface” role between very different actors of the ecosystem who are equally involved in digitalization, primarily at regional and national level. In the meantime, Innoskart is building an international network to help regional ecosystem actors to strengthen competencies in order to achieve European standards.

Thus, digital innovation is not only supported in the Central Transdanubian Region, Innoskart is also actively involved in the construction of national and European level networks. Participation in consortia of various tenders helped this construction activity. Such partnerships are:

• COSME Natureef ESCP-4i
• COSME Connsensys ESCP-S3
• Innosup INCluSilver
• Innosup S3FOOD
• Interreg Central Europe ProsperAmnet
• Interreg DTP eDigistars
• Consortium membership in Hungarian eDIH proposal

Innoskart has already participated in the development and implementation of an innovation voucher system on several occasions, the aim of which is to promote the digital innovation of companies, mainly SMEs. We also provide business training and coaching services on industrial technology transfer topics. Innoskart is member of a consortium who has established – in order to ensure long-term cooperation and utilize results – the SS4AF partnership (Smart Sensor System for Agri-food – ss4af.com/), several partner organizations are already DIH.
Innoskart agreed to establish closer cooperation with 3 universit and 1 industry knowledge centers on the establishment of a Hungarian unit of a European agri-food living lab network. In addition to Innoskart, the following take part in this:

In the European innovation support system, several agri-food industry transfer projects with Hungarian participation have already won, in the implementation of which Innoskart actively supported the applicants, who demonstrated well the implementation of digital innovation in the food industry SME sector. Based on these experiences, we created a so-called electronic digital marketplace (https://innoskart.digital/digitalis-piacter/) that allows members to network and create digital innovation collaborations.

In terms of the impact of Covid-19, we have implemented a significant community-building innovation by organizing webinars in support of digital innovation, where our goal is to present various success stories.

We also support the emergence of digital innovation in a wider social context: as part of our work on Interreg DTP eDigistars, we are supplementing existing tools for digital education for 50+ people with new innovative tools. As a result, industrial employers will have more confidence in employing this age group who acquire more up-to-date digital competencies.

Innoskart cooperates with the actors – organizations, clusters, universities, knowledge centers supporting Hungarian digital innovation in a way that fits into European trends – who come together to operate eDIH.

Services Provided

Innoskart is providing information about direct European innovation funding, like cascade funding possibilities. Such information is valuable for SMEs, information, proposal and project management are also good bases for cooperative work between Innoskart and partners.

S3FOOD (DIGITAL INNOVATION IN THE AGRIFOOD INDUSTRY) innovation voucher calls were shared with ecosystem SMEs. Innosup-01 S3FOOD supports projects within these four themes:

4 SME consortiums got funded.

Also relevant information is provided for SME partners about further competitive calls and calls for third parties. Innoskart also supports proposal preparation under these calls in order to obtain higher value proposals in term of excellence, impact and quality.

Example

2 digital technology provider SMEs from the Innoskart ecosystem, Reach Solution Ltd. and Robot-X Hungary Ltd. asked for support to introduce their existing industrial digital solution also into food industry, they were in the need to have food industry reference. Innoskart connected them to Goodmills Ltd. who made possible to pilot the solution in one of their mills.

Clients’ profile:

Reach Solutions Ltd.: company combines state-of-the-art Fog computing, Big Data technologies and Machine Learning to help our customers realize the Smart Factory transition and create a digital twin of their production plants.

Robot-X Ltd.: RobotX is engaged in industrial automation as well as the design and construction of robot cells, assembly and production lines, and special-purpose machines. They design and manufacture automated systems based on unique requirements too, and they also have their proprietary product portfolio thanks to their 10+ years of experience in the field of robotics, tested solutions, and research & development activities.

GoodMills: Hungary’s leading milling company

Client need on agri-food side: to reduce costs by increasing availability and optimizing the quantity, quality and handling of raw materials used in flour production concentrating on packaging line.

The provided digital solution that partners delivered was based on an existing system but partners customized the data receiving, collecting, storing and analysis system, set up a machine learning environment and data formatting for predictive maintenance, identifying the most important errors and their properties. The Overall Equipment Effectiveness was monitored in real time and data also could be seen on dashboards. The information was essentially available to users through a web application supporting production planning at Goodmills where the system was validated. The project got granted under Innosup S3FOOD project.

Digital Technology Transfer Webinars

Innoskart organizes, on monthly basis, thematic webinars within a well-developped framework for different partners from the ecosystem. These webinars are free for presenting SMEs and serve various purpuses:

• knowledge community building
• digitalization expert and knowledge pool development
• networking
• strengthening of digital expert status of SMEs

After the webinars, registered content is shared as Innoskart Magazine blog articles on websites and in Social Media. This has marketing and promotional effect that participating companies highly appreciate.

Example

Innoskart partners from and linked to FMCG sector were looking for a platfrom to inform ecosystem about available digitalisation solutions. Mohanet Ltd is developing smart shelves for shops – https://mohanet.com/consumption-monitoring – and Simplexion Ltd. works with RFID based monitoring systems. Both companies are continously looking for new market possibilities. So Laurel Ltd. was also invited: Laurel offers solutions to retailers in all areas of the industry. These solutions include: Complete POS Solutions, Store Management Systems, In-Store Marketing Tools, and Wholesale Inventory Management Processes.
Different actors from a sector presented their mindset, needs and challenges and help participants to gain knowledge and widen their network.

Online reference: FMCG Innovátor Találkozó

Business and Digital Technology Coaching and Training

A focused service facilitates learning and enhances digitalisation capabilities in (mainly the food processing) industry.
Innoskart DIH’s expert coaches aim to identify and develop the necessary skills and competences of SMEs. The objective is to facilitate the implementation of smart sensor systems in (food) production processes and, through that, the generation of digital data. The coaches follow projects set up at each stage of their development.
The business and technology trainings provide companies with practical and visual information about the application of digital solutions in the food sector.

Example
Ecomotive Ltd. runs an egg processing and spray dryer factory in Hungary. Their products are mainly used as important raw materials in paste production and in the bakery industry.
Of the approximately many millions of eggs processed each year, thousands of tons of liquid egg is produced, which the company has to convert into several dozens of types of end products using tank systems, pasteurizers, pulverizes and liquid packaging plants.

All these activities have to be carried out ensuring food safety, quality control and traceability aspects and to plan production processes and internal material flows optimally by making the best use of the available equipment capacities.
Ecomotive got in contact with Innoskart experts for support to find digital technology provider who could solve the problem: measuring the quantity of liquid product in existing tanks without expensive investment and stopping the production for too long time.
Innoskart searched for and found SMEs with skills and capacity to deliver a solution. Innoskart brought partners together, and as interface, facilitated the first conversations between the SMEs.
A sensor based solution was designed and delivered to Ecomotive by Cubilog Ltd. – an experienced digital solution provider in primary agricultural farming and food processing sectors.