Project Details
Description
A large part of production assets such as robotic arms, conveyor belts do not reach their maximal lifetime and become
prematurely obsolescent. Anecdotal evidence from the automotive industry suggests that 60% to 70% of production
resources is prematurely taken out of operation, scrapped, or at best sold for spare parts.
The aim of ALICIA is to create and demonstrate a Circular Manufacturing Ecosystem (CME) for production resources,
such as robotic arms or conveyor belts. The underlaying vision is that within five to ten years, production resources will
be traded and reused to their maximum utility in-between factories in Europe, ultimately contributing to closing the
loop of production assets as circular economy subjects.
The project aim will be achieved by integrating and demonstrating in two real industrial environments (at Continental
and Comau) a combination of innovative and symbiotic digital tools as key enabling technologies behind the ALICIA
CME, ultimately enabling to design, deploy, run, decommission and re-circulate second-hand production lines 40%
faster, reduce material consumption by up to 80% and reuse up to 100% of the assets. The innovations behind ALICIA
include a machine-readable ontology for mapping factory owner requirements, an AI-matchmaking engine for combining
incumbent factory assets with second-hand assets coming from the ALICIA online marketplace, a Plug & Produce
middleware for seamlessly connecting the production assets and a Digital Shadow/Digital Twin to ramp-up and operate
the ALICIA second-hand line. Novel Circularity-as-a-Service business models will be evaluated.
ALICIA addresses the EU machinery and equipment as well as machinery repair service market segments, which
together contributed 288 Billion EUR in value added to the EU economy in 2018. ALICIA is expected to contribute
to increasing the EUs resilience against disruptions in global supply chains and significantly contribute to the creation
of a circular economy.
Status | Active |
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Effective start/end date | 1/01/23 → 31/12/25 |
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