University-business partnership to promote virtual, augmented and mixed reality applications in small and medium-sized manufacturing companies
VAM*Rs
In the age of industrial digitalization, companies are increasingly faced with the challenge of finding the right technological solutions to optimize their business operations and ensure their future viability. In recent years, technologies that artificially replicate the real environment have been increasingly influencing the world of Around the world, these immersive technologies are changing the way companies do business, revolutionizing traditional workplaces and employee skills to learn more efficiently while taking customer interaction with products and services to a new level. European SMEs still have a long way to go in comparison to their global competitors when it comes to the use of immersive technologies. In particular, SMEs in the manufacturing sector lack awareness, investment and insufficient training.
Goals and Content
The VAM*Rs project aims to establish effective collaboration between universities and industry and to promote technological developments in order to strengthen the global competitiveness and innovative capacity of companies. In this sense, the VAM*Rs project raises awareness of the role that VR/AR/XR already plays in the manufacturing industry and how this will continue to impact the industry in the future. The focus is on direct collaboration with industry to integrate immersive technologies into European companies.
A central outcome of this project will be an “online platform and community” that is set to become one of the largest European VR/AR/XR platforms with over 500 members. Representatives from universities, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), service providers, business associations, business representatives and political decision-makers will exchange ideas on new approaches to immersive technology integration in industry, learn about current developments and have an opportunity to establish collaborations.
Furthermore, two self-assessment tools will be generated - Skills Gaps Detector for SMEs and Training Gaps Detector for universities - which should provide information to determine the level of maturity with regard to VR/AR/XR technologies. Based on this, measures will be proposed for companies that are needed to improve the situation; the universities will receive information on the extent to which their curricula provide students with the skills demanded by the market and how they can improve their consulting potential.
