5G-TIMBER | Secure 5G-Enabled Twin Transition for Europe's TIMBER Industry Sector

In order to review the status and future plans for the 5G-TIMBER project, a group of top academic universities and industrial partners met in Espoo, Finland, from January 18 to 20, hosted by VTT. The meeting sought to give participants a forum to discuss ideas and best practices while also evaluating the general state of the project's activities.

Muhammad Mahtab Alam, the project coordinator for 5G-TIMBER, provided a status report at the beginning of the meeting, outlining the deliverables that had been submitted and upcoming, as well as milestones and overall thoughts on how the project was progressing. A rich discussion regarding the project's use cases followed, with the goal of ensuring that all pertinent partners were on the same page and that the necessary technological resources were assembled to put them into practice.

The project use cases:

• UC1 - Data-driven sawmill and woodworking machine setup

This category addresses the first part of the value chain of the wood after forestry, starting from the cutting of the logs to their processing in sawmills to obtain lumber.

The focus of this category is on the equipment used in sawmills, specifically on the development, modernisation, setup, monitoring, remote operation and maintenance.

• UC2 - Modular wood-house factory

This category addresses the use of wood parts in constructing modular pre-assembled modules of wooden buildings. The focus is on both the production site where the modules are assembled (i.e. the factory) and the module components. Modern technologies will be integrated into the production process to improve assembly efficiency, safety and integration with the product lifecycle management tools.

• UC3 - Construction and renovation with wooden elements, valorisation of composite waste

This category covers the remaining part of the life cycle of a wooden house, namely the building at the specific site and the monitoring during the use phase. The end-of-life is focused on wooden composites wastes generated during the service life of the modules. 

The project partners also had the opportunity to tour VTT's facilities in the afternoon, specifically the materials performance labs.

The second day was devoted to talking about various technological aspects. The project partners made sure that the technology solutions to be used in the use cases are appropriate and knew how to deploy them based on the individual partners' varying types and levels of competence and the unique characteristics of each pilot site. The consortium concentrated on commercialization and communication issues in the late afternoon; to find the people who can contribute to the project or are interested in its outcomes, a stakeholder mapping workshop was held.

On the third day of the meeting, the consortium started getting ready for the technical review meeting that will take place in May 2023. Most attendees left the meeting after that, and the Project Management Board members held a last meeting to go over next tasks and deliverables.

This project consortium meeting was a crucial turning point and a great chance to assess the project's overall development. Exciting activities and project work will occupy the upcoming months. To stay up to date with everything 5G-TIMBER, subscribe to our channels.