OPENNEXT is a project that enables
small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) across Europe to engage in
communities with consumers and makers
in order to fundamentally change how
products are designed, produced, and
distributed. The project is coordinated
by Professor Roland Jochem from the
Technische Universität Berlin and brings
together a network of partners from 19
EU countries, bridging the gap between
business and consumer. Participating
companies will openly share ideas and
knowledge on digital platforms. The
researchers explain that, “we want
to empower both companies and
consumers by giving them equal access
to knowledge in order to co-design
and manufacture user-centric products”.
FROM FREE AND OPEN SOURCE
SOFTWARE TO HARDWARE
The design specifications of OSH
objects are licensed so that anyone can
study, modify, create, and distribute the
objects. Just as source code is available
for FOSS, OSH information including
schematics, blueprints, logic designs,
and CAD drawings, is available for
modification or enhancement by any
user with access to the tools that can
read and manipulate these source files.
Users can contribute design changes,
fix errors, and add new features.
They can modify the design of the
object and, if they wish to, share
their modifications.
The future of product creation
is open and community-based
Professor Roland Jochem from
the Technische Universität
Berlin is coordinating the
European research and
innovation project OPENNEXT,
a project that is enabling small
and medium sized enterprises
(SMEs) across Europe to
engage in communities with
consumers and makers,
in order to fundamentally
change how products are
designed, produced, and
distributed. Product creation
is inaccessible to most people,
but open source hardware
(OSH) product designs are
available for anyone to
modify, make, distribute and
sell. OSH offers enormous
potential for restructuring the
social organisation of product
development and reforming
conventional industrial practice.
This joint participation can
bring benefits to both SMEs
and consumers. OPENNEXT
thus facilitates collaborative
product creation by companies
and communities of consumers
and makers through new
mindsets, new business
models, and new collaborative
software solutions.
Information & Technology︱Professor Roland Jochem
Open source hardware (OSH)
are products for which all rights
of usage are granted freely
to the general public and whose technical
documentation is completely available
and freely accessible on the internet.
While free and open source software
(FOSS) has become widely available
for anyone to study, change, use, and
distribute, OSH is a concept that still has
some way to go before it catches the
attention of industrial players. The field
of OSH has resulted from the extension
of the free and open source movement
from software development into physical
products. For centuries, companies have
designed and manufactured products
using their specialised technical expertise,
which they then sell to consumers. This
process comes with the non-desirable
trade-off that we as customers without
even recognising it have to accept
problems such as over-engineering,
planned obsolescence and redundant
functions and features as a given. But
why settle for the centrally controlled
one-size-fits-all results of closed
innovation environments? Imagine if
anyone anywhere was able to customise
products of high quality according to a
transparent knowledge source and have
it manufactured in their own vicinity at
no extra cost. That is the potential the
researchers are exploring for open source
hardware (OSH) in a new project under
the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme,
called OPENNEXT.
kentoh/Shutterstock.com
The original manufacturer, who initially
shares the OSH, benefits from the
feedback from the OSH community and
the potential improvements to the design.
There is evidence that this sharing can
drive a high return on investment for
highly-customised products produced
in small batches for the benefit of the
scientific community and consumers.
OSH offers enormous potential for
restructuring the social organisation of
product development and reforming
conventional industrial practice. The
free and open source movement has
made outstanding contributions to the
development of the internet through
FOSS. For example, projects such as
Apache and Linux have benefitted from
company participation while still keeping
their community structure. It is the goal of
this project to foster the same innovative
energy and user-driven value in OSH
communities to the benefit of the user,
of course, but also of the designers, the
manufacturers and society as a whole,
minimising over-production (and thereby
waste) and democratising the way
we consume.
With OPENNEXT, the researchers
are raising awareness of the shared
values within the OSH domain and are
offering support to companies that
are participating in OSH communities.
They are dealing with a number of
significant aspects of transitioning from
a proprietary logic to an open source
paradigm. Through the OPENNEXT
project, they can offer practical advice
to companies making this transition,
transforming how products are created
and making working in an open source
fashion more accessible, thus benefitting
both businesses and citizens.
FOSS has given rise to a billion-euro
economy through the freeing of software
development practices from proprietary IP
models and opening the process to citizen
participation with open source development.
OPENNEXT is extending these principles
to the realm of physical objects.
REDEEMING CONSUMER AGENCY
The open-source model could
potentially transform all manufacturing
industries, from medical equipment
and mobility to power generation.
If consumers have access to specific
production methods and techniques,
they will, for example, be able to 3D
print a spare part for their product.
Similarly, even with limited resources,
SMEs will have the ability to customise
products in order to meet individual
consumers’ requirements.
We want to empower both companies
and consumers by giving them equal
access to knowledge in order to co-design
and manufacture user-centric products.
Companies
Fab Labs
pen Source
Development
cosystem
Makers Consumers
Public
policy
makers
Education
& research
Other
actors
€
Collaborative
design processes
ICT
infrastructure
Business models
Open source
hardware products
Prototyping
Ζ
OPENNEXT aims to transform
how products are created
by connecting companies
and communities in creative
and productive open source
development ecosystems and
thereby introduce OSH as a
viable business strategy.
Open source development of modules/
add-ons for cargo bikes: XYZ CARGO
TRUCK with an open lab module.
www.researchoutreach.org www.researchoutreach.org
LOCAL COMMUNITIES
ASA PATHWAY
The OPENNEXT project is supporting
the adoption of OSH development
practices among companies. OPENNEXT
focuses on enabling and engaging
fab labs/makerspaces in order to provide
a pathway for the new OSH model
and support SMEs in turning their open
hardware into marketable products.
To fully unleash the potential of
OSH, OPENNEXT researchers seek
the participation and engagement
of consumers and citizens through
open design and co-development of
products with SMEs. The researchers
are demonstrating successful company-
community collaboration through their
use of case studies featuring open
innovation among companies and both
online and grassroots communities.
Their support to the communities will
be through the companies, whereby
they provide guidance to them on how
to reach out, engage, and maintain the
collaboration with these communities.
Throughout Europe, the researchers
from the OPENNEXT project are
raising awareness of the values of OSH
and facilitating participation within
OSH communities. They are currently
running a series of workshops, gathering
academics, stakeholders and practitioners
to exchange ideas and explore the
challenges involved in making OSH.
The researchers explain that “we see
open source sharing and co-creation
as the natural next step in a digital
transformation that is already upending
global production and providing access to
new, specialised knowledge everywhere”.
They view closed business models and
closed innovation environments as
something of the past – the future of
product creation is open and inclusive.
The project follows the progress of
18 SMEs from three different consumer
market sectors: eco-friendly mobility,
built-to-order furniture, and consumer
electronics. Their journeys will be
documented. OPENNEXT provides
SMEs with the required infrastructure
and business support to enable them
to integrate OSH into new marketable
user-friendly products. For more
information about the OPENNEXT
project, visit https://www.opennext.eu.
closed to fully open and is not a binary
value, so the challenge moves away from
establishing whether a product is open,
to measuring how open it actually is. As
a step towards establishing clear OSH
standards, the research team developed
an Open-o-Meter to assess the openness
of a physical product. The Open-o-Meter
makes way for measuring both product
and process openness and allows the user
to check whether a product’s technical
information will allow anyone to study,
modify, make and distribute it. It provides
a simple checklist for members of the
public to judge the efforts of a product
originator to meet the principles of open
source. In addition, the Open-o-Meter
provides practitioners with guidelines
for managing their products’ data during
and after the development process. It also
helps companies integrate open source
approaches into their business model.
Moreover, the Open-o-Meter exposes the
multifunctional and contextual qualities
of openness and provides a basis for the
researchers to investigate whether criteria
of openness are mandatory or optional
in a move towards standardisation.
OSH emerges against a backdrop
of increasing sensitivity to social and
environmental issues which have steered
industries towards integrating new
requirements including eco-friendliness
and fairness in their production activities
to satisfy consumers. Ideally, this new
OSH production model will encourage
social product development and extend
the product life cycle by encouraging
consumers away from a disposable ethos
towards a make-and-repair culture that
no longer uses and throws away products
that can be repaired or reused.
LACK OF STANDARDS A BARRIER
To date, OSH has been the domain
of grassroots communities, NGOs,
and academia and has yet to reach large-
scale industry. If OSH is to become a
mainstream phenomenon, conformance
will be a critical issue for both producers
and consumers. Establishing a set of
such criteria is thought to be difficult
because of the multifactorial nature
of applying the concept of openness
to physical products. Openness seems
to spread across a spectrum from fully
Open source hardware offers enormous
potential for restructuring the social
organisation of product development and
reforming conventional industrial practice.
3.2
OPEN-O-METER
WHICH
SOURCES
HAVE YOU
OPENED
FOR
?
10
0
Fully open
source
Fully closed
POINTS TOTAL:
ARE DESIGN FILES PUBLISHED?
Technical components of the product is publicly available (CAD-files, computer
code, schematics etc.)
ARE ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS PUBLISHED?
Instructions for how to assemble are publicly available
IS THE BILL OF MATERIALS PUBLISHED?
The product bill-of-material is publicly available
IS THE CONTRIBUTING GUIDE PUBLISHED?
A guide for how users can contribute is available
ARE THE PUBLISHED DESIGN FILES IN EDITABLE FORMATS?
One or more of the file formats used is editable
IS THE PUBLISHED ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS EDITABLE?
The assembly instruction is published in editable format
IS THE PUBLISHED BILL OF MATERIALS EDITABLE?
The bill of materials is published in editable format
DO THEY ALLOW PARTIAL OR FULL REDISTRIBUTION FOR NON-COMMERCIALS
PURPOSES?
Do they use a legal license that allows users to redistribute without economic gain?
DO THEY ALLOW FREE REDISTRIBUTION OF SOME ELEMENTS, ALSO FOR
COMMERCIAL PURPOSES?
Do they use an open (source) license on some parts/elements of the product?
DO THEY ALLOW FREE REDISTRIBUTION OF THE FULL PRODUCT, ALSO FOR
COMMERCIAL PURPOSES?
Do they use an open (source) license on all elements of the product?
(Write down element)
This version of the Open-o-meter is a derivative of the original Open-o-meter developed by Jérémy Bonvoisin et. al. from Open!/Technische Universität Berlin, CC BY 4.0.
The OPENNEXT partner Danish Design Centre developed this derivative version (CC BY-SA 4.0) of the
Open-o-Meter by Bonvoisin & Mies (2018) to help manufacturing companies to develop new business
models based on open source principles.
Detail Research Objectives
Professor Roland Jochem
Technische Universität Berlin, Institute for Machine Tools
and Factory Management, Chair of Quality Science
PTZ 3, Pascalstr. 8-9, 10587 Berlin-DE
Bio
Professor Roland Jochem is Head of the Chair of
Quality Science at the Technische Universität Berlin,
Germany. He is also an Extraordinary Professor for
Quality Management at the Stellenbosch University,
South Africa. He obtained his doctorate of engineering
sciences in 2002 at the Technische Universität Berlin.
He is a member of the Scientific Council of the
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Qualität e.V. (DGQ), the
Research Council of the Forschungsgemeinschaft
Qualität e.V. (FQS), and the Gesellschaft für
Qualitätswissenschaft (GQW).
Funding
This project has received funding from the European
Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme under grant agreement no. 869984.
Project Partners
E: roland.jochem@tu-berlin.de T: +49 (30) 314-22005 W: www.qw.tu-berlin.de
Behind the Research
References
Mies, R., Bonvoisin, J., & Jochem, R. (2019). Harnessing
the Synergy Potential of Open Source Hardware
Communities. In: Redlich T., Moritz M., & Wulfsberg J.
(Eds.). Co-Creation. Management for Professionals, pp.
129-145. Springer, Cham. DOI: doi.org/10.1007/978-3-
319-97788-1_11
Bonvoisin, J., & Mies, R. (2018). Measuring Openness in
Open Source Hardware with the Open-o-Meter. Procedia
CIRP, Volume 78, pp. 388-393. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.
procir.2018.08.306
Bonvoisin, J., Mies, R., Stark, R., & Boujut, J.-F. (2017).
What is the source of open source hardware? Journal of
Open Hardware, 1(1), 5. DOI: doi.org/10.5334/joh.7
Personal Response
How would you advise an SME to go about
adopting the open source hardware model?
SMEs are believed to be in an ideal position to
take on a leading role in the open source evolution
as key drivers of socioeconomic development all
over the globe. By engaging in company-community
collaborations, SMEs can grasp the opportunity of
collaborative product creation working together
with fab labs/makerspaces, as well as corresponding
user communities, utilising what we call open source
development (OSD) framework and the right IT tools.
This collaboration promotes great opportunities in
terms of cost reductions, market share expansion
and higher customer satisfaction through the creation
of user-centric consumer products.
The research of Professor Roland Jochem focuses on
model-based process-oriented quality, standardised
quality processes, quality management, quality
excellence, organisational design of quality departments,
and innovation and requirements management.
Professor Roland Jochem
www.researchoutreach.orgwww.researchoutreach.org
