InnoWood kick-off workshop 6-7. July 2017

After the consultation meeting of the Innowood project in May, the actual tasks and the scheduling of this year's activities were determined during a two-day meeting.

InnoWood project launching workshop

The first day began with the detailed introduction of the project partners. In this framework everybody got a thorough picture about the roles of each participant in the programme, their responsibilities and the results to be realised during each activity. Interactivity became the main driving force of the event already from the beginning. During the QA session the strengths and connection networks of participants were identified and they offered to make these available in order to increase the efficiency of the project.

In the first round the foreign partners were given thorough information about PANFA and the University of Sopron. They were informed about the situation and challenges in Hungary and the lecture given by Pál Levente Németh, executive manager of Fabak Ltd, provided more information about this topic.

The introduction of the Austrian partners began by the presentation of Evelin Schmidt from Holzcluster Steiermark Gmbh (Wood Cluster Styria). Ninaus DI Dr Manfred from IITF Institute for Innovations and Trend Research talked about research possibilities and methodology while Silke Palkovits-Rauter introduced Fachhochschule Burgenland Gmbh.

The introduction of the project partners

It was revealed during the discussion of the first agenda items that the Innowood project has a priority position for each participant. It is very promising for the implementation of the project that all participants had a highly result-orientated attitude towards the questions. Thus the initial time delay was solved and on the second day the actual action schedule for this year could be constructed according to the detailed action list.

Introducing PANFA Cluster for the Austrian and Hungarian partners

As the start for the day, Dr Levente Dénes showed the team around the Natural Resources Research Centre. Even the foreign partners showed their acknowledgements and even initiated connection points and future cooperation possibilities.

Visit to the NRRC

In the rest of the day László Szikszai, owner and manager of Sixay Furniture, demonstrated the practice of positive national product development using his own company as an example.

Introduction of Sixay Furniture

On the second day  the coordination of determined topics and activities were carried out. The situation analysis phase will be realised focusing on the needs of near-border wood industry business enterprises and on a mutual furniture industry and wood architecture product development according to the already known and coordinated methodology. During the analysis of innovation implementation, the participants dealt with both Hungarian and Austrian experiences and the method and need to acquire new information. Finally, the online sales system - to be realised later - was discussed and the framework of the system was also coordinated. It was determined that its implementation form will be created depending on previous activities and their results.
The set work was fully carried out by the participants of the workshop, the next steps were also set and everybody left the meeting satisfied.