On the 18th and 19th of January 2024, the Tec4MaaSEs Kickoff meeting took place in Bologna Italy. The project partners met together in a two-day session to discuss the project and plan ahead the next steps towards the transition of manufacturing in the era of “as a service”.

During the first day the overall Tec4MaaSEs project overview was presented alongside with its vision, the objectives as well as the expected outcomes. Furthermore each partner presented themselves to the consortium and their expertise and role in the project was explicated. Then the focus was given to the Value Networks of the project. Tec4MaaSEs consists of three Value Networks, VN1 relevant to Electronic Cards for White Goods, VN2 for Additive Manufacturing for Injection Moulding and VN3 for Facilities Construction for the Hydrogen Market. These three value networks will serve as the basis for the identification of the benefits of Manufacturing as a Service under the Tec4MaaSEs scope.

To enable manufacturing as a service several topics need to be addressed as the needed Reference framework, the specifications and the core enablers, the Digital Twins that will assist in the process as well as issues on the overall integration of the technologies and in the end the Pilot operations and the validation, all issues that were addressed in the remaining sessions of Day #1.

Day #2 of the Kick off meeting was dedicated to hands on work with workshops per Value Network as well as workshops on the technologies that will be developed and integrated to create the Tec4MaaSEs supporting infrastructure.

Overall it was a great and productive Kick-off meeting and the partners set the grounds for the upcoming months of intense collaboration.