Schouw Informatisering and Living Lab innovate in Agri-Food
Living Lab: network focused on innovations
Etten-Leur, 2 June 2010 - Wageningen UR (University & Research centre) has set up a Living Lab, this is a node in the network of students, tutors, businesses and researchers focused on innovations with ICT. Schouw Informatisering is contributing to four research themes, is sponsoring two final assignments and will be responsible for some lectures at the University.
In the food industry, having accurate information available on time is increasingly becoming a key distinguishing factor. The main challenge for participants in the food industry and supply chain is to manage information, at a technical and organisational level in the best possible way and to deploy this information for the operation and management of the company. This challenge was the reason why Wageningen UR established the Living Lab. Schouw contributes "information management in the Agri-Food Supply Chain Network" to the Living Lab.
Innovations in Agri-Food can arise by tackling existing problems within the Living Lab, where existing R&D expertise and ICT solutions already implemented in companies can be combined. R&D expertise is supplied by Wageningen UR and business knowledge is supplied by companies such as Schouw Informatisering. This makes the Living lab an open innovation platform forming an important bridge between knowledge institutes, ICT companies and Agri-Food companies.
Research themes
Schouw Informatisering has selected four research themes based on major issues that are currently playing a key role in Agri-Food. The theme "grower/chain ERP" focuses on making sufficient up-to-date and accurate management information available to improve the process in individual companies and in the chain as a whole. At the moment, "green ERP" is a popular and important issue. Due to economic and social pressure companies are confronted with the need for efficient and effective use of energy and materials. This means that green ERP should not simply offer functionality for the well-known business functions but it should also offer support for managing energy consumption and using and reusing materials, and help with the accounting for these resources. In the application of "RFID" savings can be made by linking a data carrier, such as an RFID chip, to the logistics flow. The fourth theme is investigating "dynamic inventory management". Living material is processed in Agri-Food, and this makes it difficult to match the dynamic offering with the dynamic demand.
For further information, see www.wur.nl.