HORSE mapped on Significant innovations and lessons learned, training aspects

HORSE initiated the transformation of technology labs into Competence Centres closer to industry and the regional ecosystem. HORSE also launched the concept of 'Competence Centre Networking', where not only expertise was shared, but the experience of existing Technology Labs/Competence Centres was used for the establishment of new ones. As such, HORSE is the predecessor of the DIH concept, and was actually involved in the mentoring program of new DIHs, assisting in the establishment of even more such Innovation Hubs. Regarding the technologies developed, HORSE designed a reference Industry 4.0 architecture, which is applicable in manufacturing environments and taking into account all the different resources (humans, robots, machinery, sensors, etc.) that are present in a production shop floor. 

With the pilot and open call experiments, which include SMEs as the manufacturing end-users, HORSE proved that using the technologies and approaches developed in the project, robotics is feasible and a good investment not only for large companies but also for manufacturing SMEs.

HORSE developed not only technologies, but also methodologies and approaches that have been tested and can be resused for a number of different aspects, like requirements analysis, system design, system validation and business modelling.