Check Out Our Agenda

IQ.catalyst has been designed to provide a straightforward platform for utilizing your company’s data to enhance your business functions.  While Aicomp is utilizing IQ.catalyst to enhance the capabilities of its product portfolio including Cubicus and VCPowerPack,  the platform can be utilized for any business requirement where appropriate data is available.

This session will take a guided approach to IQ.catalyst to illustrate how quickly a ML model can be setup, trained, and utilized within a custom business scenario.  With this knowledge, participants can visualize how IQ.catalyst can solve or enhance their current business requirements with minimal effort.

The European Union’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) represents a fundamental shift in packaging legislation, replacing the former directive with a directly applicable regulation and thereby creating uniform requirements across all Member States. Entering into force following its final agreement in December 2024, the PPWR establishes binding targets and design requirements that will significantly reshape packaging systems placed on the EU market.

This contribution provides a structured overview of the PPWR’s core requirements and their implications for packaging design, material selection, and corporate compliance strategies. Key elements include mandatory packaging waste reduction targets at Member State level (5% by 2030, 10% by 2035, and 15% by 2040 compared to 2018), strict recyclability requirements for all packaging, and minimum recycled content targets for plastic packaging starting in 2030. Recyclability will be assessed using harmonized methodologies currently under development at CEN level, introducing standardized performance grades. Technically non-recyclable packaging (<70%) will be prohibited from the market, with further phase-outs of lower recyclability grades foreseen by 2038. In addition, the PPWR introduces ambitious reuse quotas for selected packaging categories, particularly for beverages and transport packaging, as well as design-for-minimization requirements that limit unnecessary packaging weight, volume, and empty space. The regulation also reinforces existing material-specific recycling targets and establishes clear timelines for implementation through delegated and implementing acts.

The PPWR moves packaging sustainability from voluntary improvement to regulatory necessity. Compliance will require companies to align circular design, material efficiency, recycled content, and reuse concepts with robust data transparency and systematic data sharing across the packaging value chain. Reliable, harmonized data will be essential to demonstrate recyclability, recycled content, and regulatory conformity. The presentation aims to support decision-makers, sustainability managers, and packaging developers in understanding the regulatory logic of the PPWR and translating legal and standardization requirements into practical, future-proof packaging strategies.

A short break before the next sessions of the day begin. Grab a quick refreshment and recharge your batteries for the remaining presentations.

The focus is on applications such as the rapid and cost-efficient production of prototypes for design, functional, and ergonomic testing; the realization of reusable packaging concepts; and the manufacturing of small batches and small components, including those made from food-compliant materials. In addition, the session highlights use cases in tooling, such as mold inserts, grippers, gauges, and fixtures, as well as the flexible production of spare parts to reduce downtime. Another key topic is sustainability. The session discusses the recyclability of filaments and powders and the role of 3D printing in resource efficiency and the customization of packaging solutions. The goal is to present realistic application scenarios and provide decision-makers with a well-founded basis for evaluating and implementing additive manufacturing in the packaging industry.

Digital transformation in process industries has entered a new phase: after years of isolated data initiatives and dashboards, the focus is shifting towards integrated digital ecosystems that translate operational data into measurable energy and CO₂eq performance improvements. In this context, digital twins have evolved from visual models into decision engines that combine process knowledge, simulation, and real-time data to optimise operations and resource use.

This keynote presents FOREST – the Framework for Resource, Energy and Sustainability Treatment – and its implementation at WEPA, one of Europe’s leading tissue paper manufacturers. FOREST was developed to close a recurring gap between data availability and actionable insights in energy-intensive production environments. It integrates heterogeneous information from process control systems, energy meters, and external data sources such as market tariffs and grid CO₂eq intensity into a coherent model. Through this integration, FOREST enables both real-time monitoring and model-based scenario analysis, linking energy consumption, emissions, and cost in a unified decision space. The WEPA energy use case demonstrates how this approach creates tangible value. In traditional operations, decisions on energy procurement or process adjustments rely on static contracts, averages, and historical consumption. FOREST replaces this static view with a dynamic model that couples production behaviour and energy demand. This allows the evaluation of alternative supply strategies, such as electricity versus gas, on the basis of actual process conditions and variable tariffs. By embedding hybrid simulation models within a governed digital-twin environment, FOREST quantifies how each operational choice affects energy cost and CO₂eq emissions at mill level.

Results from the WEPA deployment illustrate measurable benefits. Energy managers can simulate tariff-driven load shifting and evaluate investment options, such as integrating heat pumps or electrifying subsystems, before physical changes occur. Operators gain transparency into process-energy relationships, while sustainability and controlling departments receive harmonised, audit-ready data for ESG reporting. This shared information layer reduces information asymmetries between departments and aligns operational targets with environmental and financial objectives.

Beyond the specific use case, the keynote outlines how such digital twins can scale across sites. Key success factors include data interoperability through Asset Administration Shell (AAS) templates, standardised signal mapping, and a sustainable model-lifecycle governance concept that ensures reliability as plants and tariffs evolve. These elements turn the digital twin from a research demonstrator into an operational asset embedded in daily decision-making.

The Keynote concludes with a reflection on what makes digital twins valuable: not their visualisation capabilities, but their ability to support better decisions. FOREST exemplifies how simulation, data integration, and automation can merge into a continuous improvement loop that delivers both economic and environmental gains. For manufacturers, this means moving from data collection to active optimisation.

Half-time. Use the break to recharge your batteries and make new contacts.

Packaging operations often stall in the handoffs—between personas, departments, sites and company across the entire packaging supply chain. S2 is Esko’s cloud platform unifying data, workflows, and user experiences so every role—from CSR and prepress to planning, press, and QA—works as one. Built in API-first mode, S2 hosts core packaging domains and integrates with software systems and devices across the process, while versioned assets and process rules enable secure, low‑friction routing of jobs across presses and even across plants. AI is a critical domain driving automation to unknown heights and ensuring quality and sustainability across the process. This session will walk through the value of a packaging focused cloud platform with very tangible highlights on the role of AI to streamline the GTM process of packaged consumer goods.

While most companies consider sustainability requirements as a troublesome burden, SAP is trying to turn these obligations into a business advantage. SAP’s solutions enable companies to more efficiently comply with regulatory standards and go beyond compliance. To better understand SAPs offering in the broad field of sustainability we will have a look at specific challenges and how software is able to support. Solution presentations will illustrate selected software capabilities.

Green Planning is the use of advanced supply chain planning to contribute to a company’s sustainability goals, in balance with other business objectives. Green Planning integrates sustainability in every aspect of planning, from modeling the impact of planning decisions on sustainability, comparing scenarios to identify greener choices, balancing cost, cash and service along with key ESG metrics, and implementing business rules to achieve corporate sustainability goals.

A short break before the last sessions of the day begin. Grab a quick refreshment and recharge your batteries for the remaining presentations.

The sharp rise in the number of renewable energy producers, and the resulting price volatility, means that industrial companies now face new challenges in their approach to energy.

In this session, MCP will demonstrate how modern energy management goes far beyond mere monitoring to become an active control instrument. The focus is on the intelligent combination of:

• AI-based energy forecasting for consumption, generation and prices,
• dynamic storage management, and
• seamless coupling of energy management (EMS) and advanced production planning (APS).

Concrete application examples will demonstrate how energy flows can be made transparent, cost-optimised schedules can be created, and peak loads can be avoided. Additionally, MCP illustrates how intelligent load management can automatically adjust production orders to more cost-effective energy time slots.

A proof of concept with an international plant engineering group concludes that there is double-digit savings potential, a significant reduction in power prices, and a clearly documented business case for the successful transition from pilot to regular operation.

Kyndryl and Nova Intelligence will show how their Clean Field methodology can reduce the technical debt in an S/4HANA Transformation project, either by a System Conversion or Greenfield approach, leveraging Kyndryl’s Data Transformation Suite and Nova’s Agentic AI platform.

Nova Intelligence systematically reduces SAP custom code to the minimum required to support a company’s differentiating business processes. The Agentic AI platform analyzes the entire customer-specific custom code base of an SAP system, reconstructs the underlying business intent, and produces documentation at true requirements-specification level. Those extensions that are genuinely necessary are fully redeveloped based on this specification in a Clean Core–compliant manner.

The Kyndryl Clean Field Transformation blends System Conversion and Selective Data Transformation to SAP S/4HANA with custom code modernization, aligned to SAP Activate and Clean Core principles.

Join us for a relaxed party at “The Dachboden” right in the hotel’s attic. Here you can expect a great view and a great atmosphere. And we’ve also provided a little extra entertainment. Let yourself be surprised.