COllaborative framework for energy EFFICIENT SME systems
CO-EFFICIENT is aiming to advance innovation and already available technologies for energy efficiency and use of renewable resources, in operations and production processes of Mediterranean SMEs. The project consortium believes that there are important organisational, financial and technological obstacles, which impede the advancement of SMEs. Especially if compared to large companies, SMEs are generally slow to adopt energy efficient solutions. One of the crucial problems is that there is not enough communication and coordination between the R&D sector and SME systems, which evidently prevents technology and know-how transfer. The premise, on which this project is based, is that a permanent collaborative framework for energy efficiency and use of renewable resources linking SMEs, the R&D sector, as well as other institutional stakeholder in the Mediterranean area, will be able of improving collaboration between SMEs and the R&D sector and inducing important behavioural and technological changes in the field of energy efficient operations and production processes. The main objective of this framework will be the set-up of a living lab environment, active in all partner countries in which SMEs as final users and R&D organisation as the main developers will collaborate to develop new solutions for better use of energy in production and operations. The salient feature of living labs as such is that they seek to put the final users of innovations in the centre of the product/service development process, which assures a solution customised to user needs. This is what makes living labs appropriate for the customisation of solutions to SMEs. While work package 3 will be focused on the set-up of the framework and methodology for living lab creation, work packages 4 and 5 will each implement one international living lab, comprised of 5 local pilots, respectively. The first international living lab, implemented within WP4, will develop eServices for SMEs in order to improve the energy efficiency of operations, especially in the context of supply chain relationships. Specifically, eServices will address three energy efficiency related fields: distributed planning and re-planning, business document exchange, and transport consolidation. In WP5, the international living lab will collaboratively develop a Frame of reference for energy efficiency and use of renewable resources in production and operations. It will support SMEs in the identification of key production processes and operations that could be improved as far as energy efficiency or the use of renewable resources is concerned. The Frame of reference will be comprised of a mapping methodology, indicators to monitor processes and procedures, benchmarks, and best-practice cases. Apart from these core actions, an important emphasis will be put on accelerating the implementation of already available solutions in the field of energy efficiency and use of renewable resources through intensive dissemination.