About

D-Cube is a spin-off company of the Centre for Research & Technology Hellas, spinning research achievements out of the Visual Computing Lab. D-Cube specializes in cutting-edge quality assurance solutions for diverse industrial domains, using computer vision, machine learning, artificial intelligence and big data analytics.

Solution & Product

D-Cube is a product-based company with two state-of-the-art machine vision solutions so far. "EXTRUSION 4.0 - The Future of Aluminum Factories": An innovative machine vision solution enabling inline quality control on aluminum profiles during the extrusion process. Deep learning allows for surface inspection and early defect detection, thus resulting to scrap reduction and savings on production, processing and recycling costs. Real-time production monitoring and big data analytics facilitate fast and effective decision making. "STONE 4.0 - Marble Factory of the Future": An industrial IoT ecosystem delivering quality assurance to tile production, palletization and end-to-end tracking. Machine vision enables smart tile sorting and defect detection, using artificial intelligence. Augmented reality interfaces support precise pickup and palletization. Intranet and extranet cloud interfaces facilitate real-time production monitoring and business intelligence.

Innovation & Scalability

D-Cube's mission is to identify operational and quality assurance issues and drive diverse industries into the new Industry 4.0 era by transforming them into Factories of the Future. Market segmentation and analysis highlighted the need to develop high-end machine vision solutions for industrial domains with significant footprint in the European Economy such as the aluminum and the marble processing. Furthermore, D-Cube's vision to transform world-leading research into business value, focused on vertical solutions and products in niche markets. As a result, both products - Extrusion 4.0 and Stone 4.0 - are unique worldwide and already count installations since 2018 in major industries. In terms of scalability, it is worth mentioning that the global aluminium extruded products market is projected to register a healthy CAGR of 6,5% to reach USD 68,5 billion by 2025. Key market movements include high demand of aluminum extruded shapes from the building & construction industry and rapid growing use of specific aluminum alloy (6000 series) in automotive (due to hybrid and electric) & infrastructure to aircraft & yacht structures. Potential customers are more than 300 aluminum extrusion plants across EU, Italy (69), Spain(60), Germany(41) and Greece(26). Scale up plan incorporates direct sales and indirect sales through strategic partners in EU.

Traction & achievements

In terms of traction, Extrusion 4.0 solution has been installed in Alumil SA which is one of the most advanced companies globally in the design and production of architectural aluminium systems, owning state-of-the art production lines in 12 factories across Europe. The machine vision solution has been deployed in several production and processing lines, allowing for full surface inspection, early defect detection and operator alerting. Precise defect localization on extruded and processed profiles along with production information, are synchronously uploaded to the cloud and big data analytics reveal scrap patterns and new ways to maximize revenue. Stone 4.0 solution has been installed in Stonegroup International which is one of the largest groups of marble companies in Europe, active in quarrying, processing and trading marble all over the world with a dynamic presence in more than 80 countries. Stonegroup has fully adopted Stone4.0 in the entire tile production, enabling unquestionable marble tile sorting though novel machine learning algorithms. Smart tile sorting proved to be far more accurate and stable compared to manual sorting. Instant and automated marble tile rejection and classification led to yield optimization, claim reduction and real-time production insights. In October 2020, Extrusion 4.0 solution won the 1st place in the Accelerate category in BoostUp Competition CLC East, organized by EIT Manufacturing.

Team & Why Us

D-Cube combines research, strong scientific background with customer-centric design and deploy disruptive computer vision and machine learning technologies to industries that are willing to transform. The key for research in order to be both applicable and high-impact is to be able to align with customers' needs, wants and ambition. Its not the technology that transforms the industries but the people by developing and embracing new talents and skills. D-Cube's team is both talented and skilled and so are its customers and partners.

Funding Needs

Funding needs are currently focusing in the development of the next generation of Extrusion 4.0 solution. For that purpose D-Cube conducted in 2020 a detailed business plan including Go-to-market Strategy, P&L projections and a realistic roadmap with activities, expense categories and milestones. The fund raising amount is 1.500.000,00 euro for a two year business plan.