(Hong Kong, 23 February 2023) The Hong Kong Industrial Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Centre, known as “FLAIR”, which is founded by the Hong Kong Productivity Council with RWTH Aachen Campus of Germany as its major collaborator, is delighted to announce the signing of research and development (R&D) sponsorship agreements with four Greater Bay Area (GBA) and European industry partners recently. The sponsorships signal FLAIR enterprise partners’ determination to adopt advanced technologies to stay ahead of their competitors, and more importantly, their confidence in FLAIR’s research capability and delivery of world-class innovative and practical industrial artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics solutions that best serve their needs.

Witnessed by Mr Edmond LAI, Chief Executive Officer of FLAIR, Dr-Ing Benny DRESCHER, Chief Technical Officer of FLAIR, signed the sponsorship agreements with the representatives from the Rompa Group, Smart MM Engineering Systems Limited, Stackpole Powertrain International Aachen GmbH and TCL Corporate Research (Hong Kong) Co., Limited. Mr Stefan BREDOHL, Deputy Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in HKSAR, and Mr Hannes FARLOCK, Delegate and Chief Representative of German Industry and Commerce Ltd. Hong Kong, also attended the signing ceremony at the Hong Kong Science Park on 13 February 2023.

Mr Edmond LAI, Chief Executive Officer of FLAIR, said, “Building partnerships to promote the wider and innovative industrial application of AI and robotics technology is a key mission of FLAIR. Our four new industry partners come from the Greater Bay Area and Europe as well as different industries. We are very grateful to have their partnerships because it is important for us to really work with them so that we can work on real industry setting and apply our solution to ascertain whether it works or not and really brings positive impact to the industry. The ultimate goal of FLAIR is to create spin-off companies so that our technologies can really make a difference to the society.”

"To achieve these goals and significantly improve shopfloor operations requires profound understanding of pains in production and the involvement of international companies at an extraordinarily early stage in the R&D process," underlines Dr-Ing Benny Drescher, Chief Technical Officer of FLAIR. "Being able to validate and further develop emerging artificial intelligence approaches, models and methods together with our industry partners from the electronics, plastics and automotive industry, enables us to create scalable AI solutions in a market-centric way and thus realize added value for manufacturing companies worldwide."

Mr Jesse PLASMAN, Chief Operating Officer of Rompa Group, said, “The Rompa Group is very proud and happy to establish this great partnership with FLAIR, we view AI and Robotics as essential to our future success and growth. Our company is actively investing in the development and implementation of these technologies to improve efficiency, quality and speed in our production processes. We believe that AI and Robotics will not only increase our competitiveness in the global market, but also enhance our overall customer experience. Rompa Group is dedicated to exploring and incorporating new innovations and sees FLAIR as the best partner for this in the industry, as we are committed to staying ahead of the curve in this industry.”

Mr Allan TSUI, Founder of Smart MM Engineering Systems Limited, said, “We are delighted to join the signing ceremony as our team can take this opportunity to know other enterprises, organisations or institutions that collaborate with FLAIR and benefit from such industry exchanges. With the support and assistance of all parties, our project with FLAIR,  ‘AI-based Quality Prediction and Root Cause Analysis using Machine Learning’, is close to completion as planned. The FLAIR team helps conduct big data analysis on the data we obtained on the hardware, and then uses the quality curve comparison to calculate the failed products and infer the reason. They, in turn, identify the data recovery settings and direct the users to amend the injection moulding parameters, thereby minimising the scrap rate. This is a highly forward-looking system with significant impact on Industry 4.0 and digitalisation of injection moulding production. A joint creation by FLAIR and Smart MM Engineering Systems, this system will serve as a pioneer for Hong Kong’s development as an innovation and technology hub in the future.”

Dr Philipp KAUFFMANN, Senior Manager, Research and Innovation of Stackpole Powertrain International Aachen GmbH, said, “Stackpole and RWTH Aachen University share a long-standing, close partnership that has resulted in successful projects and exposure to cutting-edge expertise. We look forward to extending this partnership through membership in FLAIR. We are very excited to learn how the ‘Application of AI and Product Design for Assembly’ can help us to improve productivity.”

Dr Dahai YU, General Manager of TCL Corporate Research (Hong Kong) Co., Limited, said, “The partnership we signed with FLAIR is based on the project ‘Digital Production Quality Management Platform’. This project seeks to provide a comprehensive solution for LCD manufacturing, including the development and validation of Open Set Recognition Classification. Our goal is to deliver an advanced and efficient tool for managing production quality, which has the potential to revolutionise the industry. We are excited to form this partnership with FLAIR, an organisation that shares our values and commitment to excellence. Our expectation from this partnership is simple - to join forces and leverage each other's strengths to create a mutually beneficial and long-lasting relationship. TCL's interest in AI in smart manufacturing makes this partnership particularly exciting, as we believe that this area will play a significant role in shaping the future of our industry.”

Under the agreements, the Industry partners will sponsor and collaborate with FLAIR on the following R&D projects:

Looking ahead, FLAIR will continue to proactively build partnerships with enterprises and industry associations, and invite them to participate in FLAIR’s research work to ensure that its AI and robotics solutions are industry-oriented and can genuinely address major technical issues encountered by the industries. 

Dr-Ing Benny DRESCHER, Chief Technical Officer of FLAIR (left), and Mr Jesse PLASMAN, Chief Operating Officer of Rompa Group (right), signed the FLAIR industry partner sponsorship agreement

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Witnessed by Mr Edmond LAI, Chief Executive Officer of FLAIR (first from left), and Mr Fred LAW, Founder of Smart MM Engineering Systems (first from right), Dr-Ing Benny DRESCHER, Chief Technical Officer of FLAIR (second from left), and Mr Allan TSUI, Founder of Smart MM Engineering Systems Limited (second from right), signed the FLAIR industry partner sponsorship agreement

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Dr-Ing Benny DRESCHER, Chief Technical Officer of FLAIR (left), and Dr Calvin YUEN (right), representative of Stackpole Powertrain International Aachen GmbH (right), signed the FLAIR industry partner sponsorship agreement

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Witnessed by Mr Edmond LAI, Chief Executive Officer of FLAIR (first from left), and Dr Qiang LIU, Algorithm Specialist of TCL Corporate Research (Hong Kong), Co., Limited (first from right), Dr-Ing Benny DRESCHER, Chief Technical Officer of FLAIR (second from left), and Mr Karl LI, Senior Project Manager of TCL Corporate Research (Hong Kong), Co., Limited (second from right), signed the FLAIR industry partner sponsorship agreement

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Group photo of Mr Edmond Lai, Chief Executive Officer of FLAIR (third from left); and Dr-Ing Benny DRESCHER, Chief Technical Officer of FLAIR (fourth from left), with the representatives of FLAIR industry partners