Tag: Technology

The role of 4.0 technologies in improving sustainability at logistics facilities

Posted on | by Marta Re Ferrè

The research analyses how 4.0 technologies can improve sustainability at logistics facilities, identifying opportunities for efficiency increase and environmental impact reduction. The study highlights several areas for improvement, considering economic, social and environmental implications.

 

With the increasing complexity of supply chains, the need to reduce delivery times and to address ever more demanding customers’ requirements, logistics managers are increasingly relying on a combination of warehouse solutions where manual activities coexist with automation, also supported by 4.0 technologies, in order to balance flexibility and efficiency. These developments also have environmental and social implications, and there is growing pressure from stakeholders to consider the impact of such 4.0 technologies on the sustainability of logistics facilities.

These implications are the focus of a study recently published in the International Journal of Production Research (IJPR) entitled “Reviewing and conceptualising the role of 4.0 technologies for sustainable warehousing”.

The study is the result of an international collaboration between the POLIMI School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano, with the participation of Prof. Sara Perotti and Eng. Luca Cannava, the University of Saarland in Germany, with the contribution of Prof. Eric H. Grosse, and the Bayes Business School in London, involving Prof. Jörg M. Ries.

Starting from a careful analysis of the scientific literature, the study develops a conceptual model to assess the sustainability impact of 4.0 solutions applied at logistics facilities, evaluating the economic, environmental and social perspectives, as well as the impact in terms of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), by examining the application of 4.0 technologies in the different warehouse processes (e.g. receiving, storage, picking, packaging and shipping).

This systematic approach has made it possible to identify areas of intervention to make the warehousing processes more sustainable (e.g. in terms of reducing both consumption and carbon footprint), and to improve the operators’ working conditions according to a human-centric approach.

In particular, the research shows how the benefits of 4.0 technologies can only be achieved through an efficient integration within warehouse processes, whose effectiveness is closely linked to the processes involved. With regard to the spillovers associated with the adoption of 4.0 technologies, there are still major challenges related to the environmental and social impacts of such innovations.

Finally, the study identifies four main areas of development and opportunities for the future:

  • “Opportunities from a processual perspective”: related to the nature of warehouse processes, with a focus on picking activities;
  • “Opportunities from a technological perspective”:technological opportunities, including those related to the application of artificial intelligence solutions;
  • “Opportunities from a measurement perspective”:opportunities related to measurement/quantification both in terms of environmental KPIs and metrics related to the activities carried out by the operator, with a focus on the data collection and processing phases;
  • “Opportunities from a sustainability perspective”: opportunities related to sustainability, particularly in contexts where automation and operators coexist.

 

To read the complete article: Reviewing and conceptualising the role of 4.0 technologies for sustainable warehousing

HumanTech: a 2023-2027 “Excellence Departments” project

Posted on | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment on HumanTech: a 2023-2027 “Excellence Departments” project

The Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering presents the Humantech project and becomes one of the excellence departments of the Italian Ministry of University and Research

 

The Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering (DIG) is among the 180 Italian departments selected and funded by the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) for the period 2023-2027 within “Dipartimenti di Eccellenza” (Law 232/2016), the ministerial initiative aimed at rewarding the departments that stand out for the quality of their research and at financing specific development projects.

The DIG submitted to the MUR a departmental research development project focused on the topic HumanTech – Humans and Technology whose objective is to redefine the relationship between technology and human beings so as to enable a sustainable digital transition of industrial systems.

The rationale for the project is the pressing need to promote the evolution of the current technological development model – centred around the maximization of the economic result – towards a more harmonious model which takes into account the implications of industrial production for humans, society and environment, as well as the economic and financial aspects. The aim here is to propose new models and processes for the development and adoption of technologies, capable of accelerating the transition towards sustainable, inclusive industrial systems that make individual and collective well-being a priority.

For more information: https://www.som.polimi.it/en/humantech/

A world of futures to nurture the future

Posted on | by Mirja Calgaro | Leave a Comment on A world of futures to nurture the future

Center for Technology Foresight, Politecnico di Milano

Cristiana Bolchini, Professor in Computer Engineering and Chair of the Scientific Board of the Technology Foresight Center, Politecnico di Milano
Silvia Gadola, Research Fellow, School of Management, Politecnico di Milano

 

In a rapidly changing world, the opportunity to look ahead and scan the horizon to investigate what possible futures are ahead is paramount to anticipate the challenges our society will face, to be aware, possibly prepared, and eventually move towards the most desirable ones. To this end, in 2020 Politecnico di Milano established its Technology Foresight Center with the aim to explore and identify future technology perspectives and provide useful indications for strategic planning for both public and private institutions. The goal is to identify (and possibly anticipate) the drivers of change, understand and explore the potential of technologies with respect to their impact on society and the environment, and adopt a critical and forward-thinking approach to the technological progress and innovation.

The Technology Foresight Center exploits the strong competencies of its faculty and researchers in the Design, Architecture, and Engineering fields, as well as the rich network of national and international experts from the academy, the industry, and the public sector. Such heterogeneity provides the opportunity to comprehend the implications of the complex future ecosystems, highlighting the opportunities to seize and the risks to avoid, to be prepared for the challenges of the future. The reference horizon is a long-term one – usually 15 years from now, going beyond the typical forward-looking window of everyday research to try to explore with a broader perspective what possible futures are ahead, which are the preferable ones and how to move toward them. While it is true that the future cannot be predicted, it is mandatory to foster a future-thinking approach in researchers and society as a whole; spreading a mindset of understanding how today’s innovations, economic and political choices, climate and societal changes are shaping the world ahead is a pillar for the Foresight Center.

The first activity conducted by the Technology Foresight Center involved the entire Politecnico’s research community and aimed at understanding the expected impact in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of a selected set of 50 technologies and innovations identified as disruptive by previous prominent foresight studies. The technologies covered a wide range of areas of adoption to ensure an exhaustive mapping of future impacts. The outcome highlighted the technologies that are expected to have the greatest impact, among which Energy Harvesting and Car-Free cities, as well as others that will possibly have diverging effects on different SDGs, such as Blockchain or Flying Cars, negatively impacting some of them.

Driving from these outcomes, in 2021 the Technology Foresight Center developed the project entitled “The future of sustainable mobility – How will we move in 2035?”. Commuting takes a great share of our daily lives, and the way we move will have a significant impact on the quality of our lives and cities. Thinking today about new transportation needs, emerging technologies, and the associated opportunities and risks is a crucial step toward creating the mobility of the future.
2035 marks a significant milestone. Following the European Committee calendar, this date is, for many, the moment when mobility as we know it will come to an end: new technological perspectives and new habits suggest a significant change of pace that is making smart mobility a turning point for the future and sustainability of our cities. Among the various findings, technologies related to mobility showed divergent tendencies requiring a more in-depth investigation. Scenario analysis and technology road mapping have made it possible to identify mobility needs in 2035 and highlighted supporting evidence for drivers of change guiding the transition towards a more sustainable future. Within this context, a set of enabling technologies and innovations emerged in association with the relevant policies and strategic actions to be put in place to address the most desirable scenarios. The following five takeaway messages are set forth to summarize the many elements that resulted from the foresight study.

  1. To work towards more sustainable mobility in 2035, the technologies and strategic actions identified by the study move in two main directions: transitioning from private cars to services and making public transportation smarter and multimodal.
  2. The speed of the transition towards more sustainable mobility strongly depends on different combinations of political and strategic choices that need to be supported by the development of technologies and actions integrated into the existing, consolidated urban reality.
  3. The prerequisites for sustainable mobility in 2035 are already visible today where travel habits are gradually changing: owning a car is no longer a status symbol, walking or cycling is considered not as a necessity but for its health benefits. The choice of the means of transport is also determined by the growing awareness of the contribution to the environmental impact.
  4. Greater attention is required to adopt means of transport and policies capable of meeting, on the one hand, the growing demand for mobility of an aging society and, on the other, the travel needs of citizens who will be living on the outskirts of urban centres due to an expected increase in migration flows.
  5. The future of mobility is strongly affected by the evolution of choices related to the energy domain and the consequent infrastructural renewal and upgrade. Its implementation could be longer than the time horizon considered. Therefore, we expect 2035 to be an intermediate transition phase, with the coexistence of several technological alternatives regarding the type of energy vector for means of transport and autonomous driving.
The future of sustainable urban mobility

WiTECH – Entrepreneurship for Women in Technology

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on WiTECH – Entrepreneurship for Women in Technology

WiTECH (Entrepreneurship for Women in Tech), a European education project fully funded by the Erasmus+ Programme, is designed to encourage women to stay in the ICT sector and to empower them to reach their full potential through the creation of businesses in this sector

Not only is there a growing gap across Europe between the demand and supply for ICT specialists, but women are overwhelmingly under-represented in this sector. Furthermore, women who do choose ICT face a higher risk of dropping out because of unfavourable working conditions and lack of career progress.

Funded by the EU’s Erasmus+ initiative, the WiTECH project is led by Politecnico di Milano (specifically, by the School of Management and by the Department of Electronic, Informatics, and Bioengineering, DEIB).
Besides Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI), the WiTECH consortium includes two other technological universities (Lappeenrannan–Lahden teknillinen yliopisto, LUT, and Technological University Dublin, TUM), three tech start-up hubs (PoliHub, The Startup Shortcut, and Digital Hub Development Agency), as well as a business school (L’Institut de préparation à l’administration générale IPAG) from four European countries.

The team consists of professors and experts in highly relevant technical, educational, economic, and managerial fields from POLIMI. These include Massimo G. Colombo (Full Professor in Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Finance at SoM), Cristina Rossi-Lamastra (Full Professor of Business and Industrial Economics at SoM, with additional expertise in gender issues in business contexts), Mara Tanelli (Full Professor of Automatic Controls at DEIB), Nicoletta Trentinaglia (Senior Project Manager of e-learning, e-collaboration and learning innovation projects).
The project leaders from other partners are: Adnane Maalaoui (Director of Entrepreneurship Programmes – IPAG), Jussi Kasurinen  (Associate Professor and Head of Software Engineering Programmes – LUT), Barry Feeney  (Head of Department of Computing – TUD), Julia Witting-Mäklin (Director of Operations – The Shortcut).
The project also involves young scholars such as Silvia Stroe (Junior Researcher in Entrepreneurship at SoM) and Jie Li (PhD Student in Entrepreneurship at SoM).

Currently, the WiTECH project is putting together a blended learning course, which builds the skills and confidence that women with STEM qualifications need to create their own innovative businesses in ICT fields.
The heart of WITECH is a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), which is conceived as a self-sustaining tool to encourage professors to innovate their teaching practices. It targets Master’s students in STEM subjects, by being freely available online, it is also intended to spark interest in ICT among high school girls to encourage them to choose this field of studies.
The course will be promoted widely across Europe, after the development and testing of its contents during 2022.

This blended learning course consists of three modules:

Module 1:  Entrepreneurship and management.
Notions of entrepreneurship (including social entrepreneurship), how to become an executive of the 21st century (new working culture, corporate-social responsibility, diversity in the workplace, etc.)

Module 2: Technology entrepreneurship.
The notions of entrepreneurship applied to the specific challenges of starting a business in technology sectors.

Module 3: Training at a tech startup or a tech hub.
Understanding the context of tech startups or tech hubs in the framework of technology entrepreneurial ecosystems.

WiTECH started in Oct 2019, and it is expected to be completed by the end of 2022.  All the course content is now ready and the MOOC format is being produced. The website has just been launched: https://witech.training/.
The Linkedin page of the project is: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/wi-tech/.

We welcome you to join us!

Innovative design and technology for an inclusive society: new Joint Research Center

Posted on | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment on Innovative design and technology for an inclusive society: new Joint Research Center

Creating a more ‘smart’ and inclusive world: this is the scope of the new Joint Research Center ‘Innovative design and technology for an inclusive society’ created through a five-year agreement between the Politecnico di Milano, NTT DATA, and POLI.Design, with the participation of the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering of the School of Management.

The new Research Center will see the work of NTT DATA — a leading Japanese multinational company in consultation and the IT sector — POLI.Design — a company of reference for post-graduate education that acts as a hinge between the university, institutions, companies and work — and, for the Politecnico, the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, the Department of Design, and the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering.

The idea of working together grew out of not only a desire to make joint studies on innovative technological issues, but also sharing important values for promotion together, such as equality, diversity, and inclusion.

One of the collaboration’s primary goals is to use the most advanced technological and design tools synergistically to initiate a cultural transformation, to ‘focus on people’, supporting the inclusive development of society and placing technology at the service of individuals.

The collaboration establishes financing for activities and research projects related to different areas and topics of primary importance to create and realize ‘transparent’ technological solutions with impacts on our daily lives: Smart Mobility, Cybersecurity, Blockchain, Internet of Humans, Diversity Management, Universal Design, Design for Social Benefit, Product and Service Design

In particular, the contribution of the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering will focus on the issues of Data Analytics and Technology Tools for Diversity and Inclusion in close collaboration with the Department of Electronics, Electronics, Information and Bioengineering at the Politecnico di Milano.

For more information, read the press release.