Labs & Centers

Born in 2017, the Food Sustainability Lab is an initiative of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano, which takes origin from a solid research activity of several years on the topics of food recovery and redistribution and sustainability-oriented innovation.

The Lab is led by a group of professors from the Department of Management Engineering (DIG) and the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering Giulio Natta (CMIC), who bring together and systematise their competences and experiences in supply chain management, logistics and operations, industrial economics, innovation and organizational models, materials and packaging, in order to advance knowledge and demonstrate the feasibility of innovative models of circularity and sustainability in the agri-food system.

The Lab promotes various applied research projects, involving companies and trade associations, the Third Sector and public institutions. Those initiatives include the Food Sustainability Observatory, which proposes a program of research and dissemination activities, updated annually, on innovation topics for sustainability together with a Community of companies and other key players of the agri-food sector, and the Neighborhood Hub Project Against Food waste, aimed at developing a system of redistribution of surplus food for people in need in urban areas, in collaboration with public and private, profit and no-profit organizations.

The main research areas of the Lab concern:

• innovative solutions and business models developed by agri-food startups and supply chain and cross-sectoral collaborations for food circularity and sustainability;
• best practices for the prevention and management of surplus food to reduce food waste along the supply chain;
• new materials and more sustainable food packaging;
• models of "short" supply chain, which shorten the distances upstream and downstream, leveraging on geographical, relational and information proximity.

The Research Group:

Scientific Directors: DIG - Alessandro Perego, Raffaella Cagliano, Paola Garrone, Federico Caniato, Marco Melacini; CMIC - Barbara Del Curto
Research Director: Giulia Bartezzaghi - DIG
Research Team (Professors and Researchers): DIG - Federica Ciccullo, Veronica Leon, Claudia Colicchia, Mattia Iannantuoni, Annalaura Silvestro, Ernst Johannes Prosmann, Andrea Rizzuni; CMIC - Romina Santi

For any further information please contact: giulia.bartezzaghi@osservatori.net

The Industry4.0Lab at the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano is made by a fully automated assembly and manufacturing line. The high flexibility of the system and the modularity of the configuration allows to test and replicate virtually any variety of manufacturing and assembly system for discrete manufacturing. Moreover, the configuration of the system can be reshaped very quickly and with ad hoc modelling and simulation tools.

This allow is to act both as a research oriented lab as well as a Teaching Factory.

Thanks to its hardware and software architecture, which totally replicates a real factory ready for Industry 4.0 concepts is possible to investigate different kind of research areas within the I4.0Lab:

• Advances Manufacturing Systems;
• Manufacturing Operations;
• Maintenance Management;
• Sustainable Manufacturing;
• Simulation;
• Big Data Analytics;
• Iot and Cyber-Physical Systems;
• Combination of Production and Logistics;

I4.0Lab has been designed to address four main purposes:

• Research Projects related activities;
• Education and Training;
• Concept validation and prototyping;
• Awareness creation and Consulting.

The I4.0Lab implements a multidisciplinary vision of production environments for the realization of the teaching and research lab for the new manufacturing, thanks to the involvement of other Department of Politecnico di Milano and international Universities and Research Center.

The Industry 4.0 Lab is engaged in several research projects to practically implement new business model concepts and to develop required tools for deployment and assessment of intelligent business processes.

The IoT Lab is dedicated to applied and basic research on topics related to the Internet of Things (IoT). It focuses on the research and design of “open” and “flexible” hardware and software platforms for the implementation of IoT complex systems in support of different vertical application scenarios. The most important of these is Energy Management in Smart Homes/Buildings, with strong connections to the Smart Grid and Smart City themes.

The Laboratory aims at creating an environment for the research, design, development and testing of IoT 360° solutions, but with specific reference to applications in the field of energy, requiring the management of complex heterogeneous systems, which include monitoring, generation management, storage and use of renewable energy, communication systems, distributed sensor devices, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) relating to system functioning and advanced user interfaces (monitoring and control dashboards).

The Laboratory collaborates with four Politecnico di Milano Departments, with competence areas that complement each other:

• The Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering: market analyses, IoT technologies/platforms and impact on business models
• The Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering: research, development and prototyping technologies and IoT platforms
• The Department of Energy: design and management of plants and energy systems, with specific reference to electric energy storage systems
• The Department of Design: Human-Machine Interface, User Experience & Interaction

The Laboratory aims at providing a large-scale IoT system for the collection of information from the environment and its transfer to a control centre, as well as the skills necessary to control logics, processing and display of data’s development. This system operates like an open “platform” for the development of different vertical applications that are also dedicated to other research areas of the University. To this end, the Laboratory is equipped with devices for the monitoring of energy consumption, sensors for the monitoring of environmental parameters (temperature, humidity and presence), multimedia sensors (smart camera and thermal cameras) and the communication infrastructure necessary to deliver the acquired information to a remote control centre. This system is physically hosted at the Laboratory’s main site in Peschiera Borromeo, while some specific components are developed and hosted at the satellite office in via Ponzio (at the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering).

A test environment dedicated to research activities in the field of energy, having the capability of performing tests on electrical loads, generators and storage systems, is instead located in the Milano Bovisa satellite office. The equipment there interfaces remotely with the main site in Peschiera Borromeo and enables applications’ testing in optical Smart Grid and Smart City (coordinated load management, controllable generation and energy storage in grid-connected or micro-grid configuration) and to develop innovative monitoring and management methods based on an open and highly flexible IoT platform which different stakeholders, both internal and external to the University, can use to design and test specific applications.

LOCATION

Main location: Via Giuseppe di Vittorio 61, Peschiera Borromeo (MI)
Satellite locations:
Via Ponzio 34/5, 20133 Milano (at the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering)
Via Lambruschini 4, 20156 Milano (at the Department of Energy)

EQUIPMENT

Equipment provided by the Departments involved in the Laboratory

• ZigBee Nodes
• Nodes for environmental monitoring and GPRS gateway
• Kit for the monitoring of energy consumption
• Wi-Fi Development Kit with sensors
• RF nodes for the monitoring of environmental parameters and corresponding receiver
• RF system for locating people
• Various radio frequency identification systems (fixed and mobile)
• 100 KW back-to-back inverter
• Molten salt accumulation system (23 KWh)
• Digital Oscilloscope
• Energy Meter

Are technologies enabling immersive digital experiences capable of changing the relationship between companies and markets? And if so, how? What are the determinants of this change? These are some of the research questions that the Metaverse Marketing Lab aims to study, drawing on more than ten years of research on the management of omnichannel and digital technologies in marketing and communication, and on the expertise in consumer studies in immersive environments also through applied neuroscience.

Relying on the equipment and the skills of Ph.E.E.L. integrated with devices for the analysis of eye movements in immersive and virtual reality environments, the Metaverse Marketing Lab, on the one hand, analyzes the marketing initiatives undertaken by companies in immersive web (AR, VR, mixed reality, etc.), and, on the other hand, investigates how users interact with stimuli and experiences, in order to understand whether and to what extent these are able to elicit mutual value.

Aiming at representing an hands-on discussion forum, the initiative has been conceived and developed with UPA, the Association that brings together the most important industrial, commercial and service companies that invest in advertising and communication in Italy, and UNA, the Association representing more than 250 Italian creative and digital agencies, public relations agencies, media centers, event agencies and retailers.

The Laboratory is supported by a set of industrial enterprises, consultancy companies, agencies, service and technology enablers, and, with the purpose of developing a benchmarking and collaboration platform among practitioners, it organizes meetings and workshops to share research reports on its characteristic themes, such as:

• Marketing applications in the metaverse
• Immersive web and customer service
• Immersive web currency and attention metrics
• Legal implications related to the brand presence in the metaverse
• Trading in the metaverse and meta-Commerce
• The relationship between immersive technologies and brand omnichannel strategies

Scientific Directors: Lucio Lamberti, Giuliano Noci
Research Team: Manuela Balli, Debora Bettiga, Michele Di Dalmazi, Francesco di Paolo, Marco Mandolfo, Gloria Peggiani

For further information: metaversemarketinglab-dig@polimi.it

Pheel is a laboratory which summarises the analysis of the biological and physiological signals of individual and expert evaluation in order to study the behaviour of individuals in response to specific stimuli(products/services/experiences, interfaces, advertisements, editorial contents, non-advertising messages, social interaction, etc.).

Thanks to the mix of detection and analysis skills of biological signals, to expert evaluation procedures, semiotics and marketing, Pheel is able to analyse people’s involvement when using various different artefacts, providing innovative and multi-dimensional interpretation keys.

The study of biological signals is a constantly-evolving discipline. The expertise in the field of Biomedical Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano represents a national landmark as well as one of the world’s top centres in the field of Engineering Applied to Medicine. Our research protocols use non-invasive methods and instrumentation, verified and tested on a variety of subjects, including children and people in fragile conditions. The experience we have gained at the Design Department of the Politecnico di Milano in the various project applications allows us to provide creative and rigorous interpretation keys, which aim at translating outcomes into concrete design inputs, useful for designing products and services and for defining communication strategies. The expertise of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano, a national landmark in the study of consumer evolution in response to the multi-channel revolution of enterprise-market relationships, leads to results which can be immediately put into operation at a managerial level.

LOCATION
Pheel is located in the Polihub, Via Durando 39/A, 7th Floor.

The laboratory can accommodate up to 8 multimodal detection stations (EEG, eye tracking, ECG and respiratory curve wearables, Galvanic Skin Response detectors and facial expression sensors).

EQUIPMENT

The equipment allows both lab data collection and, with reference to specific operating functions, data collection on the move.

• Electroencephalogram – Attention, engagement, enjoyment, cognitive effort
• Electrocardiogram and respiratory curve wearables – Relaxation, anxiety, stress, involvement
• Galvanic skin response detection sensors – Excitement, attention, interest, involvement
• Eye-tracking equipment – Excitement, cognitive effort, enjoyment, interest, involvement
• Facial expression detector – Surprise, joy, disgust, anger, fear

The objective of the Urbanscope Lab is to help renewing the link between know-how and action in the decision-making processes, public and private, which concern and produce the cities and the urban, as complex spatial, social, economic and institutional processes. More than 50% of the population lives today in cities and this trend is expected to continue: the available studies describe an increasingly “urbanised” world in which the cities are the places where not only people, but also resources, key players, opportunities and issues concentrate. In practice, according to the most recent literature, the world is increasingly “urban”, as well as urbanised, since it is based and operates on the basis of a close interdependence between the urban, traditionally understood and what used to be called non-urban. We are, in other words, in the presence of players and relations that interconnect in a stable manner, of systems that may be physically very distant but remain strictly interdependent, where the relational mechanisms are key for the operation of the different interconnected systems and where the distinction between local and global, between real and virtual world (web and social media), between urban and non-urban becomes increasingly blurred. In this sense, the definition of “urban” should no longer be understood as referring to a spatial unit marked by clear and unambiguous borders: the cities of the XIX-XX century are in fact only one of the forms of the urban of today. In the same way, we see a series of new global players at the centre of complex and articulated processes interacting with this new urban condition. We are therefore facing what has been called “Planetary Urbanisation” (Brenner and Schmidt, 2013).

Focusing on the need to find a new way to process data and information needed by all those who act on the base of principles of individual and collective rationality in the social, economic and institutional field to understand, to make decisions and to govern in this new urban condition, the lab shall focus on two key nodes: public players, increasingly involved in complex decisions that go beyond their administrative borders and global companies, where the “global” term is understood not strictly, in the physical sense, but in terms of market and competition.

LOCATION
Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering
Via Lambruschini, 4/B
20156 Milano

EQUIPMENT
Software for statistical analysis and High Performance Computation, with the support of the MOX lab of the Mathematics Department:

• • • https://mox.polimi.it/facilities

Software for display and design, with the support of the Density Design lab:

• • • http://www.densitydesign.org/about

Software for analysis of statistical data and cartography production in a GIS environment, with the support of the Ladec lab:

• •  http://www.ladec.polimi.it
  • Meeting facilities, for meetings and research workshop with partners.

The Dunning Centre Europe for International Business addresses two key aspects relating to contemporary business. First, it focuses on the international business strategies implemented by different types of firms (including small and medium-size enterprises) within a wide range of industries and competitive contexts. Second, it evaluates the impact of international business on socio-economic and managerial issues, including firm performance, sustainable development, CSR, and the management of human resources within Multinational Firms.

A considerable amount of research relates to technology strategy, including its manifestation in firms’ approach to R&D and innovation, and to interaction with policy makers, think-tanks and international agencies.

IDeaLs is a research platform pioneering new ways to engage people to make innovation happen.
In our search for meaningful innovation, we will develop new insights and tools that leverage the power of design and digital technologies.
IDeaLs brings science into action. It joins leading organizations, thought leaders and researchers to create tools that spark change and deliver impact.

Leadin’ Lab is the laboratory for Leadership, Design and Innovation at the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano. It helps leaders to create meaningful innovations and transform organizations.

When you enter Leadin’ Lab you join a circle of researchers and pioneering managers who address the novel challenges of value creation in a world overcrowded by information and ideas. We combine action with research: we scan the context, conduct our own experiments, and develop new tools.
So that your decisions are informed by science. Ultimately, our purpose is to enable you to master the landscape and the frontier of leadership, design and innovation, and become a thought leader who inspire others.

The Lean Excellence Centre is a research group engaged in both studying and spreading the Lean approach in companies and organizations in general.
It targets all those willing to deepen their knowledge in the most significant managerial innovation of the last years, with the final aim of overcoming its deceptive simplicity by supporting companies in implementing the innovative and differentiating aspects of Lean.

The ReMAPS research group carries on studies and applied researches aimed at supporting institutions and organizations that operate in the strategic fields of Arts and Public Services to rethink and innovate how policies and management are designed and implemented.
All ReMAPS researchers share the common belief for a collaborative and multidisciplinary approach to such kind of innovation to conciliate and integrate different goals, perspectives, methodologies and experiences.
Collaborating with the ReMAPS group guarantees state-of-art results due to the diversified portfolio of its researchers’ competencies and their established network with leading institutions and organizations in both Italy and Europe.

The R2MaCS research group develops basic and action research projects to foster the adoption of risk and resilience models and metrics in making informed decisions on complex socio-technical systems and related phenomena. We are mainly active in the fields of Critical Infrastructure Resilience, Operations and Supply Chain Risk Management, Healthcare Risk Management, covering the full spectrum of stakeholders’ needs. The interplay between technical, organizational and social aspects is particularly investigated, making use of different modelling techniques and proprietary methods.

TIRESIA is the International Research Center promoted by the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano pursuing scientific excellence in the field of Social and Impact Innovation

Tiresia empowers people and institutions to most disruptive changes and challenges in social innovation ecosystems. Through research, education, advisory and experiential learning, we enhence the capacity of individuals and organizations to embrace global and innovative solutions to complex societal problems.

Tiresia consider social business and inclusive economy the powering engine working across sectors, institutions, and disciplines to build new social infrastructure and to foster economic growth.