DigiMach: digitisation for SMEs
Is it code red for European manufacturing now that cars, electronics and energy systems from Asia are flooding the market, with added pressure from American tariffs and the threat of wars? One thing is clear: digitisation is part of the answer, including for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). DigiMach is a Euregional innovation project designed to help smaller companies in the metal sector move forward with digitisation. Maastricht University is one of the partners.
They dominate the headlines: tech giants launching satellites into orbit, automating and robotising factories, and investing hundreds of billions in artificial intelligence and vast data centres. By comparison, Europe’s star shines only faintly, with just a few bright points such as ASML. Are we losing the race?
Finding the niches
Not according to Rudolf Müller, professor at the School of Business and Economics and researcher at the Brightlands Institute for Smart Society (BISS) in Heerlen. He shakes his head at what he sees as an overly bleak picture. “European manufacturing has enjoyed a technological head start for years. Look at car manufacturers and machine builders, or at the energy sector with solar panels and wind turbines. But increasingly we’re being undercut by mass producers in low-wage countries who can deliver more cheaply. Should we try to compete head-on? I think we should focus on critical components that no one else can make. Find the niches. Digitisation is crucial in that context.”
Small businesses
Hasn’t European manufacturing already been doing this? “It has,” confirms Rim Stroeks, innovation business developer at the Maastricht University Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. “But Covid and recent geopolitical developments mean the industrial landscape has shifted. For many products, parts and raw materials, we’ve become too dependent on less friendly regimes. That’s why the EU is rethinking its strategy. Far-reaching digitisation is one of its spearheads, and this will impact the entire supplier ecosystem, which largely consists of SMEs.”
Digitisation is costly, Müller adds. “Entrepreneurs have been automating things for years and want to keep up with the latest developments, but they often lack the resources, the right people or simply the time. So projects like DigiMach are important in order to support them, to bring them along. That’s exactly what DigiMach aims to do.”
Euregional project
DigiMach is a Euregional innovation project funded by seven partners from Flanders, Wallonia and East Belgium; North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany; and the Dutch province of Limburg, including Maastricht University. With additional funding from the European Interreg programme, it has a combined budget of more than €3.6 million to introduce metalworking companies in the region to the latest digital tools.
“At BISS, for example, we’re developing a platform where companies can access digital tools such as design software and AI applications,” Müller explains. “By the end of the project, in 2028, this platform should support an ecosystem where companies and experts ask questions, share knowledge and help one another. We’ll back this up with an AI chatbot that can turn available information into answers. The goal is to create an independent platform that continues to stimulate and drive innovation.”
250 entrepreneurs
First, companies need to be identified and brought into the fold. This is where Stroeks comes in. With over 20 years’ experience as an innovation consultant for industry in the Netherlands and Germany, he knows the terrain well. “Our ambition is to involve at least 250 entrepreneurs from the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. They’ll be able to experiment with cutting-edge tools that continuously optimise production processes and allow high-quality products to be made more accurately and efficiently. Various technologies will be presented and tested in demonstrations and workshops. Ultimately, we’ll run 20 pilot projects with companies that actively start working with the new tools. From experience, we know this has a strong motivating effect on other participants and on the sector as a whole.”
Metalworking
The project focuses specifically on SMEs in precision mechanical metalworking that manufacture components. Isn’t the proposition too abstract for such hands-on companies? “Not at all,” says Anna Wilbik, professor of Data Fusion and Intelligent Interaction and a project partner. “DigiMach is aimed precisely at these kinds of businesses. We’re not foisting something completely new on them; we’re building on existing equipment and machines—enhancing them, so to speak. Our partners will develop sensor kits that can be installed on any machine. Using the data from those sensors, we’ll build AI models to make machines more reliable and extend their lifespan.”
She gives an example: “Take a milling machine. We look at the drills and chisels it uses, the raw materials, and the products it makes. Experienced operators can sometimes hear when a machine is about to fail. We want to analyse those sound patterns and develop an AI model that detects anomalies before a breakdown occurs.”
Real-life cases
There’s another major advantage, Wilbik adds. “Capturing everything digitally means knowledge is preserved, and the step towards AI-driven automation becomes easier. At a time of staff shortages, that’s a real benefit: machines can take over parts of the work where needed. So we’re making very concrete contributions to the manufacturing industry. At the same time, we can use these real-life cases to give practical insights to our students in the data science, AI and computer science programmes.”
Text Jos Cortenraad
Photography Harry Heuts
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