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An introduction to the SYMPHONY project
From IMS News 23, Jan 2002
In early December, the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, hosted the kickoff meeting for the Symphony project. IMS project partners from the Australia, Canada, the EU, and Switzerland attended the two-day meeting. The meetings were held at the very impressive, state-of-the-art, e-commerce enabled laboratories of Drs. Louis and Elisabeth Lefebvre. Attending the session were university, research institute and corporate representatives from each of the IMS regions participating in the project team.
SYMPHONY aims to adapt recent
concepts and approaches to agile, adaptive enterprises for adoption by SMEs.
Applied research as a service for real industrial practice is the
main background for the research approach of this project.
SYMPHONY begins from the concepts of resource-based strategy,
knowledge based, and learning enterprises that are making their way through
today's companies. It recognises a general trend towards flatter, horizontal
organisations in the approaches of complex, adaptive systems and hybrid
structures. In the United
States, those approaches are known as “Agile Manufacturing Systems.”
In Europe - especially in Germany -
the concept of "Fractal Production System" is widely spread. The project
recognises that those concepts and approaches are well known and
acknowledged by both research centres and industry.
It is also mutually agreed that new ways of managing are needed for
companies that are introducing these approaches.
Although first promising steps can be discerned in various
developments for large enterprises, a consistent set of operational methods,
tools and software needed to manage knowledge-based and horizontally
organised SMEs is still missing.
SYMPHONY will develop practicable, applicable results for SMEs by focusing
on the identification and further development of already existing
operational software-tools and methods and on their adaptation to the
specific demands of SMEs.
As host of this inaugural meeting, Canada is proud to play an important role in developing, testing, and implementing this new SME toolkit in cooperation with the three other IMS Regions participating in the project. Canada’s partners in the Symphony project include: École Polytechnique, Hewlett-Packard Canada, SAP Canada, CGI, Heliotech and VA Tech.
Australian participants in the SYMPHONY project include four SMEs – CAMMS, Ecosol, Marshal Furniture and Osmoflo – the SA Centre for Innovation, Business & Manufacturing, and the School of International Business at UniSA. For additional information contact Peter Balan at UniSA phone (08) 8302 0821, email: peter.balan@unisa.edu.au
IMS is an industry-led, international research and development program established to develop the next generation of manufacturing and processing technology. Companies and research institutions from Australia, Canada, the European Union & Norway, Japan, Korea, Switzerland and the US participate in the program.