LISDATA among the winners of the European Data Incubator

May 10, 2019 By Natalia Andueza

As one of the 6 finalists of the European Data Incubator (EDI), LISDATA presented in Berlin the predictive maintenance software developed during this European programme.

What is EDI?

It is a project that forms part of the European research and innovation programme “Horizon 2020”. It is led by 20 partners from across Europe, has a budget of €5 million in non-repayable funding, and aims to accelerate SMEs and startups interested in developing Big Data projects.

This first edition initially had a total of 277 applicants, of whom 30 startups were selected to take part in the different projects proposed by European corporations to solve problems such as, for example, improving road safety in Barcelona or predicting fraudulent transactions in supermarkets.

LISDATA participated in the challenge set by Volkswagen Navarra: “Predictive maintenance system for industrial robots in the body shop”. During the programme, a platform was developed to extract and manage performance data, measured by the industrial robots’ own sensors. This platform includes an artificial intelligence layer that makes it possible to detect anomalies and issues before the machines stop, so that maintenance teams can be informed and corrective actions can be planned and scheduled optimally without affecting productivity.

Programme development

The programme began in mid-2018 and lasted close to 1 year. The first phase, called “Explore”, consisted of clearly defining the project concept or idea and training in Big Data technologies. This part of the development was very important, as we needed to fully understand Volkswagen’s needs. Finally, after a tough selection process, the jury decided that LISDATA would be among the 16 startups moving on to the next stage.

The second phase, called “Experiment”, consisted of creating a minimum viable product to launch to the market. To achieve this, for months we had the support of specialised mentors, technical infrastructure equipped with all kinds of tools, ongoing Big Data training, and personalised support to develop the business idea and commercialisation of our product. The final of this phase took place in Bilbao, and we were among the 6 finalist startups—those with the greatest sales potential for our product.

The final phase of the project, called “Evolve”, enabled each startup to present the developed product to various investors, entrepreneurs, representatives of the European Commission, and innovation enthusiasts, as well as to identify real investment opportunities.

Final evaluation

On 7 May, our participation in the EDI came to an end. As finalists, we attended the Demo Day in Berlin, one of Europe’s most creative and innovative cities.

Our colleagues Javier García, Braian Gómez and Juan Kempe have worked hard over these months to position us among the best European startups, recognised by the programme. We would therefore like to take this opportunity to acknowledge their effort and thank them for their professionalism.

Although the programme has ended, we continue working on and improving our predictive maintenance product thanks to the pilot project we signed with Volkswagen Navarra.

In addition, we are awaiting the start of projects with other companies, both in the automotive and industrial sectors, that want to benefit from the value that being able to predict downtime in their machinery brings to their business and, based on that, schedule corrective actions or preventive maintenance.