On 9th and 10th February 2017 the first meeting of Smart Factory Hub project was taken place in Sárvár, Hungary. Representatives from numerous countries participated in this project, which is part of the Danube program. In this current project, -together with the Lead Partner-, ten companies and organizations took part from Germany, through Austria and Hungary to Bulgaria.

The Lead Partner of the project is the Pomurje Technology Park from Slovenia, whereas the Kick-off meeting was organized by Pannon Business Network. On the first day, in the beginning of the meeting, every company and organization made a short presentation about their background, and their scope of activities. Due to these presentations the participants had the opportunity to get to know each other’s work. After that, the technical and the communication work packages were presented by the Slovenian Lead Partner and the Hungarian Pannon Business Network.

On the second day, the meeting continued with further discussions about Industry 4.0 and additive manufacturing. Then, the public part of the event was opened by Tivadar Máhr, the vice-mayor of Sárvár city who made an interesting presentation about the relationship between industry and tourism. This presentation was followed by a study visit to the Lenovo part of the Flextronics factory, which can be also found in Sárvár. The program manager of the factory leaded round the participants in the production part and showed them the different products and processes which are used in the factory. Besides, the application of some devices, related to smart factory- robots which may replace human workforce, data counting machines- were also shown.

Returning to the conference room, Dr. Krisztina Bárdos, the leader of the IFKA Public Benefit Non-Profit Ltd made a presentation about industry 4.0, which was succeeded by good practices and experience sharing of the University of Stuttgart and the Austrian Profactor in the area of additive manufacturing.