Shoestring’s research is well received at SOHOMA’21

The latest advances made in the Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring project were presented at SOHOMA’s international workshop hosted in France, and the feedback from researchers from across the world helped provoke ideas for future endeavours.

Organised by the Arts et Metiers Institute of Technology of Cluny, the 11^th workshop on Service-Oriented, Holonic and Multi-Agent Manufacturing Systems for Industry of the Future (SOHOMA’21) aims to foster innovation in smart and sustainable manufacturing and logistics systems and promote concepts, methods and solutions for the digital transformation of manufacturing. In total, 42 papers were presented on the topics of Human-Machine Interfaces in Industry 4.0, ethics, reconfigurable manufacturing, holonic approaches in smart manufacturing, digital twins, intelligent monitoring and control, sustainable supply chains of the future, and digital manufacturing.

By presenting four papers, researchers from the Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring project played a central role in the workshop. Greg Hawkridge and Jan Kaiser (from the Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge) and Giovanna Martínez-Arellano (University of Nottingham) shared the latest research from the project, presenting a graphical environment for developing low-cost digital solutions, discussing the challenges during development and applying digital manufacturing architectures within the context of small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs).

Shoestring’s industry-oriented research was well received by fellow academics at the conference and sparked a discussion about the applicability of current architectures for Industry 4.0 and how Shoestring can address this issue. Thanks to their extensive work with SMEs, the Shoestring team were able to share practical insights into the application of other’s cutting edge research.