In an era where speed, precision, and sustainability are essential to industrial competitiveness, many manufacturers face a dilemma: how to scale operations and reduce waste without exhausting human workers or compromising on safety and product quality.
HARMONY, a pioneering experiment funded under the European Commission’s ARISE project, takes on this challenge by rethinking how humans and robots work together on the factory floor — not through automation that replaces, but through collaboration that empowers.
Developed by HPC (technology provider) and CMYK (end-user), HARMONY focuses on one of the most demanding sectors: the packaging and production of healthy food ingredients. Here, physical strain, repetitive tasks, and variable environmental conditions create a perfect use case for next-generation, human-centric robotics.
Working in HARMONY: Predictive, Adaptive, and Safe
At the core of HARMONY is a modular robotic system that combines predictive Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), AI-powered manipulation, and FIWARE-based condition monitoring. Unlike traditional industrial robots that simply follow commands, HARMONY cobots anticipate human intent — enabling smoother, safer task sharing and real-time adaptation to operators’ movements, posture, and proximity.
This proactive collaboration helps prevent accidents, reduces cognitive and physical load, and enables human operators to focus on tasks that require creativity, attention to detail, and problem-solving — like quality control and process optimization.
Interfaces are designed for inclusivity, supporting multimodal input (gesture, voice, touch), multilingual access, and ergonomic adaptability — ensuring that operators of different backgrounds, ages, and skill levels can confidently interact with the system.
Manufacturing With Purpose: Smarter Systems, Greener Impact
HARMONY doesn’t stop at efficiency. With the help of FIWARE-powered condition monitoring, the system continuously tracks environmental parameters like humidity, temperature, and energy consumption. This allows it to maintain product quality while reducing waste and energy usage — a clear step forward for climate-conscious production.
Predictive maintenance further reduces unplanned downtime and resource waste, while real-time monitoring ensures safety and compliance across the process. This approach aligns closely with European Green Deal objectives, combining digital transformation with sustainability and worker protection.
Sharing the Benefits: Reusable Skills and Open-Source Impact
A central contribution of HARMONY to the ARISE community is a reusable AI-powered robotic manipulation skill, delivered as a fully documented ROS2 module. Designed for flexible product picking and handling in high-precision environments, this open-source module includes tutorials, standardized APIs, and validation across multiple industrial scenarios.
By releasing it through the ARISE Open Library, the team aims to lower the barriers to smart automation for SMEs and system integrators across Europe, supporting interoperability and reducing integration costs thanks to its FIWARE-enabled architecture.
From Pilot to Market: Impact With a Human Focus
HARMONY is more than a technical showcase — it’s a demonstration of how collaborative robotics can improve real-world work environments. Among the tangible results expected:
- Up to 30% reduction in production cycle time, thanks to collaborative automation in packaging and press operations
- 20% improvement in product quality, enabled by real-time anomaly detection and environmental control
- 40% reduction in equipment downtime, driven by predictive maintenance
- Safer workplaces, through reduction in physical strain and better ergonomics
- New job roles, such as robot operators and HRI specialists, supporting upskilling and workforce resilience
By promoting a shared-autonomy model, HARMONY challenges outdated narratives about robotics replacing workers. Instead, it offers a compelling story of empowerment, inclusivity, and trust in automation — where robots do the heavy lifting, and people do what they do best.
With a modular, open-source, and replicable architecture, HARMONY is well-positioned to scale across sectors — from food to logistics and beyond. It demonstrates the potential of ARISE’s middleware and methodologies to deliver concrete results: from faster deployment to lower costs, and from technical innovation to social responsibility.
As Europe moves toward Industry 5.0, HARMONY reminds us that the real revolution in manufacturing isn’t just about machines — it’s about the humans they’re built to serve.
HARMONY exemplifies what’s possible when collaborative robotics, ethical AI, and open-source values come together with a clear purpose. We invite you to follow our progress as we bring safer, smarter, and greener manufacturing to life.
High Performance Creators Ltd.
CMYK Ingredients AD
ARISE – HARMONY