2nd open call of L4MS for intralogistic automation now ongoing

L4MS (Logistics for manufacturing SMEs) opened its second Open Call on September 1st, 2019. Small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMEs), mid-caps, automation and robotics providers are invited to apply to the Acceleration program. The program aims at developing new intralogistics solutions with mobile robots and OPIL IoT platform.

The goal of L4MS is to provide manufacturing industry inexpensive way to deploy advanced technologies and automation to factory floor logistics. L4MS offers SMEs tools that can help reduce the installation cost and time of mobile robots significantly.

L4MS acceleration program has developed an Industrial IoT platform OPIL for logistics (Open Platform for Innovations in Logistics) to enhance communication between different factory floor elements. This turns an operation environment into a flexible and responsive logistic system. Introducing a 3D simulator (Visual Components) to the process enables virtual testing before final investment decision and highly cost-effective deployment of configurable human-robot logistics solutions. Read more about OPIL here

How to apply to L4MS?

Manufacturing companies facing logistical challenges in their factories can apply together with a system integrator, automation provider, robot manufacturer, Research organisation or Digital Innovation Hub and submit their proposal as a consortium of 2-3 partners. The most promising Application Experiments with highest innovation potential will get access to:

Equity-free funding up to €250,000 per team, business and technology mentoring, access to state-of-the-art testing facilities, training to re-skill workers and finance for scaling up the new business model.

The selected experiments will take part in an extensive and personalised training programme and build their experiment relying on OPIL technology to completely virtualize intra-factory logistics automation and drastically accelerate the innovation process in this area. Acceleration program is divided into three stages and lasts 2-11 months.

“If companies are willing to dive headfirst to improve their logistics processes, this program is worth joining. L4MS is not just about bringing an AGV or a robot into the manufacturing unit: It’s about looking at the whole logistics process and thinking how, when and what kind of solutions are worth your time”, says COO Kristo Timberg from Estonian AS ChemiPharm, one of three companies that joined L4MS as pilot experiments.