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Report from 18th KM Fest

 

REPORT

By Dr Brane Semolic

Global Academic Advisor

Celje, Slovenia

 


 

The LENS Living Lab international innovation community successfully concluded the 18th KM FEST event, which was the very first Competence Center (CC) ROBOFLEX Strategic Conference at the same time. This time KM FEST co-organizers, besides LENS Living Lab, were CC ROBOFLEX and TCS – Toolmakers Cluster of Slovenia, with their international industry research and innovation robotics’ innovation community.

More than 50 various thematic experts from 14 different countries (China, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, India, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden) and three continents (Europe, Asia, and Africa) participated in this 3-days event.

The first-day focus was on the use of collaborative robots and smart factory applications; the second day paid attention to the business models of related competence centers and their innovation ecosystems. The third – last day was reserved for the emerging industry engineering competencies and corporate culture change challenges. We had fruitful round table discussions at the end of each meeting day.

The final report will be available in the LENS Living Lab Newsletter next month. More info about this event at this link: http://kmfest.com/ 

Here is the link where you can find the KM FEST presentations: http://kmfest.3-lab.eu/

 


 

About the Author


Prof Dr Brane Semolic

Founder and Head of LENS Living Lab –
International living laboratory
Celje, Slovenia

 

 

Brane Semolic studied mechanical engineering, engineering economics, and informatics; he holds a scientific master’s degree and doctorate in business informatics. His focus of professional interest is industrial and system engineering, innovation and technology management, virtual organizations and systems, project and knowledge management. He has 40 years of working experiences in different industries (industrial engineering, IT, chemicals, household appliances, government, and education), as an expert, researcher, manager, entrepreneur, counselor to the Slovenian government and professor.  He operates as head of the open research and innovation organization LENS Living Lab. LENS Living Lab is an international industry-driven virtual living laboratory. He is acting as initiator and coordinator of various research and innovation collaboration platforms, programs and projects for the needs of different industries (ICT, robotics, laser additive manufacturing, logistics, education). He was co-founder and the first director of the TCS – Toolmakers Cluster of Slovenia (EU automotive industry suppliers). Since 2004 he is serving as the president of the TCS council of experts. Besides this, he is operating as a part-time professor at the Cranefield College.

He was head of project and information systems laboratory at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Head of the Project & Technology Management Institute at the Faculty of Logistics, University of Maribor and professor of project and technology management at the graduate and postgraduate level. He acted as a trainer at the International »European Project Manager« post-graduated program, organized jointly by the University of Bremen.

He was the co-founder and president of the Project Management Association of Slovenia (ZPM), vice president of IPMA (International Project Management Association), chairman of the IPMA Research Management Board (2005-2012), and technical vice-chairman of ICEC (International Cost Engineering Council).  Now he is serving as a director of the IPMA & ICEC strategic alliance. He actively participated in the development of the IPMA 4-level project managers’ certification program. He introduced and was the first director of the IPMA certification program in Slovenia. He has been serving as the assessor in this certification program since 1997. He performed as assessor in the IPMA International PM Excellence Award Program in China, India, and Slovenia.

He is a registered assessor for the accreditation of education programs and education organizations by the EU-Slovenian Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.

He was a Member of Strategic Advisory Board of European Competitiveness and Innovation, as well as the president of the Slovenian Chamber of Business Services.

He got the award as ICEC Distinguished International Fellow in 2008. He received the »Silver Sign« for his achievements in research, education, and collaboration with the industry from the University of Maribor in 2015.

Professor Semolic is also an academic advisor for the PM World Journal.  He can be contacted at brane.semolic@3-lab.eu.   Additional information about the LENS Living Lab can be found at http://www.3-lab.eu/ .

To view other works by Prof Semolic, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/brane-semolic/