On July 22–23 Slovak members of the FactoRIS consortium visited their Austrian colleagues. This was the first in-person visit of the learning factories of TU Wien that was possible after the 2nd wave COVID related travel restrictions. The researchers from TU Wien first presented the TEC-Lab – Laboratory for Production Engineering – with its high-end infrastructure used for research in active cooperation with many Austrian companies. The second visit was to the Pilot Factory Industry 4.0 of TU Wien, located in the Aspern Smart City that is dubbed the largest and most innovative energy research project in all of Europe. Presented by its director and FactoRIS project member Mrs. Claudia Schickling, the Pilot Factory focuses on the discrete, multi-variant series production up to the production in very small quantities, and includes all aspects of product creation from design to assembly in an integrative approach. The target group are especially small and medium-sized companies. Their needs and fields of interest are determined by the participating institutes of TU Wien within the framework of close cooperation contacts. The entire visit has been interlaced with abundant discussion on the progress of the project, implementation of available learning factory projects, and creation of digital learning nuggets.
