We are moving beyond the idea of efficient task automation and entering a far more decisive phase. The focus now is on integrating genuine intelligence, decision-making capability and real collaboration between technology and people.
In line with our mission, at TECNALIA we want to ensure that technology is not merely used for demonstration purposes, but rather that it has a real impact on industry.
A living, connected, smart ecosystem.
Where factories don’t just respond: they anticipate.
Where machines don’t just operate: they communicate.
And where people don’t just work: they magnify their potential.
A Proactive Factory is a conscious factory that understands every step of the process, a flexible factory that adapts without stopping, and a collaborative factory, where people, machines and systems act as a single unit.
A factory that does more than just produce: it looks after and optimises itself, and evolves.
Because it’s not about automation. Nor is it even about digitalisation. It is a CONVICTION, based primarily on many projects carried out with companies in various sectors.
The question is no longer what new technologies we can incorporate. The question is: how can we get the factory to operate differently? How can we get the factory to anticipate, to predict… to stop merely reacting? Because at many plants we are still having to respond to a range of issues: incidents, changes in demand, quality issues, supply chain pressures and sustainability requirements, among other things.
In short, it is a factory that looks after and cares for its entire ecosystem, its value chain and its life cycle.
That is why TECNALIA has developed its vision into something more ambitious: THE PROACTIVE FACTORY.
The Proactive Factory is home to OMNIA, TECNALIA’s ecosystem of intelligent actors, deployed on the KATEA infrastructure.
Distributed AI that understands context, anticipates needs and enhances people’s abilities.
It works like a Chat GPT-type assistant adapted to the industrial environment, combining general and specific knowledge to support decision-making.
It acts as an interface with other intelligent actors, to cooperate with the user through natural language, executing the voice and text commands given to it.
The assistant acts as an interface for the proactive actions initiated by the other intelligent actors, collaborating with the user. AI manifests itself proactively at this level: AI itself calls for the person's attention.
It is a factory that stops being just a collection of machines and production processes with physical limitations and becomes an intelligent, synchronised system for creating value, managing a comprehensive ecosystem capable of operating at a level where objectives are set and decisions are made. This is a Proactive Factory:
The Proactive Factory combines three capabilities which are not separate entities, but which, when taken together, transform the way a factory competes: CONSCIOUSNESS, FLEXIBILITY AND COLLABORATION. To maximise efficiency and productivity in increasingly complex environments.
When we talk about digitalising and interpreting data, we are talking about making decisions in advance.
When we talk about greater automation, we are talking about collaboration at an ecosystem level.
We develop solutions based on industrial anthropomorphic robotics with capabilities that are independent of specific manufacturers, thereby eliminating dependencies, which we then tailor to highly specialised processes with complex requirements.
We develop and roll out complete, special robotic solutions at a pre-industrial stage.
We even go a step further, with highly flexible robotic solutions, essentially combining mobile and collaborative robots.
We respond to new needs in evolving markets by designing high-productivity, multi-process machines.
We are working on new, advanced designs that integrate mechatronic, control and process behaviour, both at the simulation and characterisation stages.
We are also optimising their performance through real-time adjustments to offset vibration and thermal deviation.
Because automation alone is not enough. The PROACTIVE FACTORY creates processes that learn and, more importantly, self-improve while they are running.
We link robotics, machines and other production resources to special processes, such as machining, welding and other bonding or additive manufacturing processes, deploying complex solutions for real, pre-industrial parts.
We have moved on from digital optimisation to autonomous AI-driven processes capable of self-adjusting parameters in real time, ensuring productivity, process stability and quality.
The Proactive Centre represents its capacity for understanding and coordination.
It is the element that embodies the consciousness of the factory, by acting as the operational brain of the industrial system.
It combines information about machines, processes, people, logistics and IT/OT systems to build a synchronised view of what is happening in the factory and its surroundings.
