Yellow Papers / The DanobatGroup's Open Innovation case in collaboration with EIT Manufacturing

We love to tell success stories of collaborations between startups and companies and today we come to show you a project that we carried out with Danobatgroup, in collaboration with our partner EIT Manufacturing, within the framework of the MAKE IN! programme of the development agency Debegesa. 

Danobatgroup is a Basque company that is a benchmark in high added value solutions in the field of grinding and turning. In close collaboration with its customers, it develops turnkey solutions for specific applications in the following sectors: aerospace, railway, automotive, energy, oil and gas. 

They were faced with a major challenge, which they faced with ambition: to explore and incorporate artificial intelligence to model, analyse and process data extracted from machines and production systems in order to provide their customers with an improved service, as well as to develop a new business model. 

Danobatgroup relied on ieTeam and EIT Manufacturing to address this challenge through a very simple process. 

Initially, we defined the challenge, its scope and objectives, and then designed a value proposition for potential collaborators, i.e. startups. We then launched an open call for proposals in search of the best solutions, combined with a process of scouting or identification of European startups. After a process of meetings and evaluation of alternatives, Danobatgroup selected 3 startups, with which it has developed pilot tests to test their technologies in different applications: Ai-omatic solutions, Neuron Soundware and Tyris.ai. 

And what were the results? 

1. Identification of 30 international startups, from 12 European countries. 

2. Development of 3 POC's with different use cases. 

3. Incorporation of AI into the business model with a focus on diversification and generation of customer value. 

It is clear that collaboration between company and startup is always positive, being a two-way value generation relationship. On the one hand, the company manages to find solutions to its innovation challenges and on the other hand, startups get reference customers to whom they can add value with their solution. So, let's keep on betting on open and collaborative innovation!