What someone else shares may touch on your next question
Sometimes an insight from another partner helps you look at your own challenge more clearly. At the Handsfree Agrifood ecosystem event at VDL, participants shared knowledge and questions that may also be relevant beyond their own project context. The event showed how knowledge sharing within Handsfree Agrifood extends beyond one use case and helps others recognise more quickly where projects connect.
Trust makes sharing more practical
When parties have known each other for longer, direct contact between engineers from different organisations becomes easier. As a result, information is shared more readily and collaboration becomes more concrete. Trust takes time, but gains value when partners know how to find each other beyond scheduled meetings.
‘The longer you know each other, the more information you share. After a few years, even the engineers start talking to each other.’
Wim Spit - RIWO | participant in Use Case 1 and Use Case 5
Adoption takes more than good technology
In practice, technology adoption often takes 3 to 4 years. Customers need to understand what a solution does, how it fits into their work process and why they can trust it. That is exactly why sharing matters. It helps partners recognise adoption questions and preconditions earlier, without suggesting that application will automatically move faster as a result.
‘Technology adoption takes time. How can we speed that up? That is an important theme in the ecosystem.’
Dax Denneboom | participant in Use Case 11
AI calls for joint exploration
AI is developing quickly and raises questions that do not stay within one use case. Which data can be used, which decisions can be supported and where does using AI in practice require joint agreements? During the event, this brought forward the question of what role AI could have within the consortium and on which themes parties can work together.
The tour at VDL also added broader context
VDL Groep hosted the event and is also involved in projects within NXTGEN. In the VDL Experience Center, participants saw how technology, manufacturability and automation come together in different environments. As part of the programme, the tour also contributed to conversations about cross-overs and questions that may arise beyond participants’ own use cases.
Broadening starts with finding each other more easily
Within NXTGEN Hightech Agrifood, the Handsfree Agrifood ecosystem brings parties together, stimulates knowledge sharing and creates room to build experience jointly. The value of the Handsfree Agrifood ecosystem event was therefore not only in the meeting itself, but also in what participants take back to their own practice. In this way, broadening helps partners see more quickly where their own challenge touches on that of others.