Abstract

Over the last decade, development of Smart Systems Integration (SSI) has demonstrated tremendous benefits in terms of enabling new functionalities of diverse products contributing to enormous economic potential with annual efforts in Europe estimated at approx.10 b€.

There is significant opportunity for innovative SMEs to further exploit SSI as they are ideally placed to commercialise and drive the whole product development cycle, effectively bridging the “valley of death”.

Europe is in a strong position to champion its established RTOs competitive research, development and production facilities and to be a world leader in transitioning product development in SSI from prototyping to manufacturing, with particular focus in the low volume high value chain domain.

SMARTER-SI has a unique opportunity to capitalise on Europe’s research excellence in SSI, leverage expertise of SMEs and RTOs and drive impact through commercial exploitation.

Inspired by the Strategic Research Agenda of EPoSS, SMARTER-SI aims to develop an RTO Community Foundry Model (CFM) that will accelerate a wider deployment of SSI with greater access to design, manufacturing capabilities for prototyping, early validation and first production for SMEs to exploit in niche markets.

A strategic objective is to lower entry barriers using the cooperative approach of utilising existing process steps/building blocks available at partner RTOs. This in turn will advance innovative products for SMEs in Europe. The system approach will enable these companies to reach for a higher profit margin than currently achievable with components sales.

SMARTER-SI will thus facilitate a greater level of innovation and know-how that will reside within Europe and will be difficult to replicate by competitors in other regions for the manufacture and production of similar products.

SMARTER-SI is designed to be a test bed to realise 10 Application Experiments through the CFM that will trigger a bigger action, e.g. in ECSEL.