Czech industry is undergoing fundamental changes towards transformation and digitalization. The driver of these changes over the last six years has been the National Centre for Industry 4.0 (NCP 4.0), which has managed to build a functional ecosystem for innovation and collaboration across academia, industrial companies and public administration. In January 2023, the Czech European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH), all of which are linked to the National Centre for Industry 4.0, also started their activities. Jaroslav Lískovec, the current director of the NCP 4.0, will be responsible for the development of the CTU EDIH, which will be replaced by Robert Keil as director. Both entities will take advantage of mutual synergies and will work closely together in the field of supporting the digitalization of SMEs, startups and public administration.
Robert Keil, who joined the National Centre for Industry 4.0 in 2021, has been intensively involved in the development of expert groups and cooperation projects and subsequently, as Deputy Director, in the running of the Centre itself. Prior to that, Keil worked at CzechInvest (a state agency), where he spent almost four years in the role of sector manager for advanced engineering and later nanotechnology. He demonstrated his long-standing interest in innovative technologies and technology transfer during his studies at Charles University, where he attended the first ever university-wide course on Science and Innovation Management.
"The National Centre for Industry 4.0 has earned a strong position within the ecosystem of industry and digitalization over the years of its operation, which is also due to the great activity of Jaroslav Lískovec. Of course, we will continue in this spirit, where we will focus our activities towards the development of cooperation between industry and the academy, as we have excellent conditions for this. We have built a unique testbed infrastructure, we can rely on our wide network of actively cooperating partners and now we also have the opportunity to use funding for SMEs and public administration entities to finance innovation through EDIH," says Robert Keil, the newly appointed director.
The objectives of NCP 4.0 include education, networking, developing digital literacy and contributing to the development of the various technological areas associated with Industry 4.0. "The path to digitalisation and the implementation of innovative solutions is not science fiction, it is open to all and we can help. We will be organising even more intensive training events and developing our DigiAudit product, which has helped 268 companies in the past year alone to set their digital strategy," adds Robert Keil.
In the spirit of further development and expansion of the Centre's activities, a new leadership position was created in the Board of Directors, which is the supreme body of the National Centre for Industry 4.0. According to the current statutes, it has elected a new leadership. The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Jiří Kabelka (DEL a.s.), and the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors, Petr Šimoník (VŠB-TUO), both defended their positions. Jana Polášek Filová (Škoda Auto a.s.) was unanimously elected to the newly created position of Vice-Chairman.
"The confidence of my colleagues in my re-election as Chairman of the Board of NCP 4.0 is binding on me. It is also confirmation that the basic idea of the centre - i.e. the transfer of new ideas from academia to production practice - is really succeeding. There is now perhaps no doubt in anyone's mind that Industry 4.0 is the right way to go, and there are few people in business who are not familiar with the concept. I am therefore delighted to be able to continue to contribute to the development of the Centre's activities. I see Industry 4.0 as a huge opportunity to modernise Czech industry and thus the Czech Republic. How to move it from the position of an 'assembly plant' to a category where added value is created and stays 'at home' and thanks to that the whole Czech society becomes richer," says Jiří Kabelka, Chairman of the Board of Directors of NCP 4.0, on his re-election.
Infrastructure and cooperation within the academic environment is also essential for Petr Šimoník: "In the current revolutionary decade of transformation of several industrial sectors in the spirit of the principles and means 4.0 and in order to implement optimizations in production and logistics, in line with the pressure for sustainable energy, I will continue to very actively support synergistic competence building within the framework of industrial testbeds located in the academic environment of Czech universities. We must not slacken in our efforts to implement and create concrete successful applications. I firmly believe that more passengers will board that Prague-Brno-Ostrava express train and more stations will be added - testbeds for industrial digitalization and robotics applications."
"Škoda Auto has supported the National Centre for Industry 4.0 since its inception. For more than five years, I have been part of a team that has managed to build cutting-edge laboratories at Czech technical universities, launch unique scientific research projects with an impact on practice, and create a functioning infrastructure for a centre activating the digital transformation of Czech manufacturing companies. The new position on the Board of Directors is an opportunity for me to continue projects at the interface between the academic and industrial world, especially in the field of applied research and development, training of business experts and education of new talents, enabling the sharing of examples of good practice of digitalization and Industry 4.0," says the new Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of NCP 4.0 Jana Polášek Filová.
The National Centre for Industry 4.0 currently brings together more than 50 partners and members from manufacturing and technology companies, Czech universities and industry organisations. Its growing role in the ecosystem for innovation and Industry 4.0 was confirmed, for example, during the International Engineering Fair 2022, where its stand, supported by partners Česká spořitelna, T-Mobile and the RICAIP research centre, became one of the main attractions of the Digital Factory 2.0.
The Centre develops its activities on several levels and is involved in international projects that bring interesting opportunities for Czech, especially small and medium-sized, enterprises. DigiAudit, an independent online assessment of the digital maturity of companies, has been approved by the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic as a compulsory attachment when applying for support from the Digital Enterprise National Recovery Plan.
Photo: Robert Keil, new director of NCP 4.0. Photo taken by: Roman Sejkot, CIIRC CTU.