A research team from Chiang Mai University (CMU), Thailand, recently completed a secondment at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden. The team, which comprised members from the SMEs 5.0 Project, included Assistant Professors Salinee Santiteerakul, Assistant Professors Chawis Boonmee, Dr. Tinnakorn Phongthiya, and Dr. Rattapol Pinnaratip. They were hosted by their KTH counterparts from March 30th to May 12th, 2023.
During this period, the teams engaged in a multitude of academic activities and initiated new collaborations, focusing on the themes of sustainability and resilience. The first two weeks were dedicated to introductory meetings and project planning. The CMU and KTH team members became familiar with each other's work and reached a consensus on the research activity plan, thereby establishing an action plan for the CMU team's duration in Sweden.
In the third week, the KTH team invited the CMU team to attend the Sustainable Transformation Seminars spring 2023 series. The online seminar featured a presentation titled “X production systems: Enablers for sustainable transformation?” by Sara Linderson, an Industrial Ph.D. candidate at KTH-AstraZeneca. This event provided insights into the latest sustainable practices in large corporations, offering potential benefits to the sustainability practices of SMEs.
During the fourth week, the teams accompanied KTH’s Associate Professor Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge to visited the smart factory laboratory of Scania in Södertälje. The researchers had insightful discussions with Scania representatives about the current and future technologies being developed at Scania's Smart Factory Lab. Additionally, the CMU team attended a networking event with the Industrial Transformation Platform researchers’ network at the KTH Stockholm campus. This gathering provided broader insights from multiple scholars and industry experts, contributing to a deeper understanding of the project's scope.
On May 5th, 2023, KTH’s Assistant Professor Erik Flores Garcia and the CMU team held a meeting with a representative of the Mälardalen Industrial Technology Center AB (MiTC) in Eskilstuna, Sweden. They had fruitful discussions and exchanged information regarding industrial collaboration trends and research, leading to potential future collaborations.
The final week of the secondment saw the CMU team attending a meeting at TSS under the RESPIRE program to learn about a new model of circular economy, sustainability, and resilience in business practice. Additionally, they contributed to a RESPIRE meeting. Assistant Professor Salinee Santiteerakul presented findings from the SMEs 4.0 project under the title “Digitalization at SMEs: Findings from a Study on Thai SMEs Industry 4.0 Readiness Assessment”, and Assistant Professor Chawis Boonmee discussed “Disaster Management in SMEs: Lessons Learned and Case Examples from Thailand”. The secondment concluded on May 12th, 2023, after which the CMU team will continue their contributions from their home base at CMU.
