Accelerator | Industry in the driving seat for competitive production

Effective cooperation for competitive local production 

Manufacturers who want to grow face a recurring challenge: how do you translate promising technology into relevant solutions on your production floor? The Accelerator programme puts industry in the driving seat. By bringing together pilot companies, their suppliers and R&D partners, it accelerates the search for competitive production. 
 

Target group

• Large industrial manufacturing companies (pilot companies) looking to invest in the digitalisation of their local production environment 
• Technology suppliers who want to validate and scale their solutions in an industrial context 
• Companies that want to build on the results of previous Accelerator trajectories for their own digital transformation 

Context

The step from an enthusiastic idea or prototype to a robust solution on the production floor is, for many manufacturers, the hardest one. The path from promising technology to scalable solutions in your own factory demands time, expertise and the right partners. 

A first Accelerator trajectory (2022-2026) demonstrated that it is possible. Under the coordination of Flanders Make, 6 pilot companies invested more than €150 million in the digitalisation of their production environment. The results (6 local, operational, digitalised pilot lines) were concrete and measurable. Sirris now joins as coordinator of the next trajectory, building on what the companies have achieved together. 
 

Objectives & results

• Bring together industrial knowledge and R&D expertise in an innovation-driven ecosystem 
• Develop pilot cases at industrial scale: from idea to validated implementation on the production floor 
• Enable new manufacturing companies to join and benefit from existing knowledge 
• Pave the way for the next Accelerator cycle, focused on interconnected, intelligent and self-adaptive production systems 

Key results 

• Learning network of pilot companies sharing knowledge and cases in 6 half-day sessions 
• Scalable solutions developed by pilot companies together with their suppliers, applicable beyond the individual company 
• Technical workshops disseminating results of the first Accelerator project to a broader audience 
• Follow-up to the first successful Accelerator project 
• An ecosystem of companies that can lay the foundation for the next Accelerator trajectory 
   

Approach

The current trajectory focuses on knowledge sharing and ecosystem development as a bridge to future Accelerator projects. 

• Learning network: 2 regional networks (East and West) bring participating companies together in confidential half-day sessions. Companies share challenges, insights and applications around the thematic pillars of the Accelerator programme 
• Technical workshops: open dissemination events make Accelerator results accessible to a broader audience and encourage new pilot companies to join 
• Preparation of future Accelerator projects: in parallel, VLAIO is exploring the possibilities for a new Accelerator trajectory 

Funding

The learning network is financed by the participating companies themselves (€1,000 contribution per company). For future Accelerator projects, a dossier has been submitted to VLAIO for a new funding instrument.