On 10th October 2024, PERKS consortium had their first meeting with the Strategic Advisory Board of the project. During the meeting the consortium shared an overview of the project progress and results with the board and through very fruitful and interactive discussions, collected numerous comments, insights and recommendations from board members.
Generally the board found the project and its focus extremely relevant in terms the market needs and industry trends as well as the use-cases in terms of specific demonstration of applicability of technology solutions that PERKS provides. Surveillance and training of workforce were raised as critical elements regarding the desirability of PERKS solutions from a user-perspective. While strengths and opportunities such as modular architecture and the link to twin transition were highlighted during the discussion, there have been also a focus on factors that could hinder the deployment of PERKS solutions such as resistance of workforce, lack of a concrete business case, and the traditional nature of manufacturers that struggle with integration of advanced AI solutions in their legacy systems. Accordingly, engagement of trade unions and raising awareness of workforce in terms benefits that AI could bring to their daily operational activities could help to address some of these barriers.
The discussion around PERKS use-cases provided insightful comments in terms of exploitation of PERKS through integration with the results of other similar projects that use-case owners are involved in as well as scaling up PERKS solutions to other units and equipment of the companies.
In summary, the provided feedback by SAB confirm the relevance of PERKS both from technical and Market perspectives. While the use-cases are quite different, the provided technical solutions cover all three of them and they have the potential to be exploited in other sectors such as agriculture and healthcare. The overview of the ecosystem shows a limited evolving ecosystem of players (both Large enterprises and SMEs) at either component level or the whole solution level. This highlights a favorable competitive positioning for PERKS, however it’s crucial to ensure the integrability of the technology to facilitate the go to market.