The Basque Country is among the most important industrial concentrations in Spain and is now successfully entering the so called ‘Industry 4.0’ era, where machines and robotics are remotely connected to computer systems. Services are an integrated part of this new revolution and they are changing the business models of a wide range of industries around the world.

The 27^th International RESER Conference on Services, organised from 7^th to 9^th September 2017 in Bilbao (Spain) by the Business Faculty of Mondragon University, focused on this disruptive change. This year’s topic was "the crucial role of services in businesses and cities competitiveness".

As the use of energy and raw materials in manufacturing is expected to increase by 40% over the next twenty years, saving resources in industrial processes appears as a key factor for the competitiveness of the sector. The novel methodology to optimise the use of resources in manufacturing value chains developed within the EU-funded MEMAN project was greeted at the conference as a potential solution.

“Strategies to improve the economic and environmental performance of companies are usually pursued from a limited perspective. MEMAN is developing a strategy to improve energy and resource efficiency not only for a single company, but for an entire value chain. This shift is considered to reduce energy consumption and CO₂ emissions by at least 30% and the Life Cycle Cost of manufacturing products by over 10%” explained project coordinator Joseba Bilbatua from Mondragon Corporation at the RESER Conference.

“In 2018, MEMAN partners will make available the services developed in the almost four years of the project, to advice companies on their resource consumption. If thoroughly implemented, we believe this is going to change the way businesses produce. It will manage to address the two sides of the industrial production ‘coin’, saving both money and resources for the companies involved” concluded Joseba Bilbatua.

Have a look at the presentation about the MEMAN project at RESER 2017