European Commission
en English en

Efficient and Sustainable Manufacturing

Efficient and Sustainable Manufacturing
Efficient and Sustainable Manufacturing

Context

Advanced Manufacturing is a key sub-area proposed for cooperation in the framework of the Industrial Modernisation Platform. The Specific topic is “EFFICIENT AND SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING” (ESM), a pilot born in the framework of the Vanguard Initiative and promoted by the regions of Lombardy, Catalonia and Auvergne-Rhone Alps. The ambition of the ESM pilot plants will be to address multiple enabling technologies in a systemic perspective, making available an infrastructure that is currently not existing, due to its complexity and to the high innovation level of the industrial applications for which it is conceived. These pilots will be open to companies, constituting a neutral and cooperative playground for cross-sectorial and interregional collaboration, facilitating access to the newest and state of the art process technologies to the entire European manufacturing environment.

Year established: 2016

Regions (lead and partner)

  • Leading regions: Lombardy (IT), Catalonia (ES), Auvergne Rhone-Alpes (FR)
  • Participating regions: Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen – South Tyrol (IT), Basque Country (ES), East Netherlands (NL), East and North Finland (FI), Emilia Romagna (IT), Flanders (BE), Friuli-Venezia Giulia (IT), Lower Saxony (DE), Malopolska (PL), Navarra (ES), Norte (PT), Pays de la Loire (FR), Saxony (DE), Saxony-Anhalt (DE), Scotland (UK), Slovenia (SI), South-Netherlands (NL), Tampere (FI), Wales (UK), Wallonia (BE)

Mission

The mission of the partnership is to focus on technologies, methods and tools aimed at:

  • Increasing process efficiency, i.e., increase the throughput and quality of manufacturing processes, technologies and products aiming at reducing costs.
  • Promoting manufacturing sustainability in terms of reduction of released emissions, generated waste and resources, energy, and materials consumption.
  • Promoting manufacturing sustainability in terms of human inclusion in the factories.

Objectives

Manufacturing efficiency and sustainability are two challenges to be addressed in a synergic way and systemic view to enable EU reindustrialisation and to preserve natural resources. The idea is to conceive and develop an EU network of infrastructures and pilot plants in key manufacturing areas, where companies can test innovative solutions prior to industrial uptake. This approach will increase the competitiveness and the development of EU value chains, while exploiting synergies and complementarities of different regional specialisations.

Main activities

The activities of the partnership are organised into four demo-cases outlined as follows:

  • De- and Remanufacturing for Circular Economy: advanced and innovative enabling technologies and digital innovations (TRL 7-8) to solve specific sustainability-oriented problems related to their products. Some use-cases are composite recovery, automotive battery remanufacturing, textile recycling.
  • Polymer based functional products: development, testing, up scaling and integration of Advanced and Sustainable Materials & Processes. Some applications are smart plastronic components and nano-functionalised polymer products.
  • Digital Transformation: “Industry 5.0” technologies to manufacturing environments to realise highly performing and human-centred digital/virtual factories. Some applications are quality control and predictive maintenance and robotics and human interaction.
  • Energy-flexible ad resource-efficient factory operation: technologies and methods to optimise energy/materials consumption in manufacturing processes and to realise emission-neutral factories.

Organisations involved

Austria:

  • Saubermacher (AT)
  • isovolta (AT)

Belgium:

  • Veltha (BE)

Finland:

  • TUT (FI)

France:

  • Polymeris (FR)
  • Univ. Lyon (FR)
  • Continental (FR)
  • SWARM (FR)

Germany:

  • Fraunhofer IWU (DE)
  • Arculus (DE)
  • Hohner (DE)

Italy:

  • AFIL (IT)
  • ART-ER (IT)
  • COMET (IT)
  • Politecnico di Milano (IT)
  • STIIMA CNR (IT)
  • Università degli Studi di Brescia (IT)
  • Enginsoft (IT)
  • Gualini Lamiere (IT)

Portugal:

  • Produtech (PT)
  • INEGI (PT)
  • INESC (PT)

Spain:

  • Eurecat (ES)
  • Accio (ES)
  • AIN (ES)
  • Tecnalia (ES)
  • ICN2 (ES)
  • IRIS (ES)
  • Rofin (ES)

The Netherlands:

  • Brainport Development (NL)

Shared smart specialisation areas

Different topics of regional Smart Specialisation strategies are shared and connected to efficient and sustainable manufacturing partnership: sustainable development, advanced manufacturing, digitalisation, energy efficiency, industry and innovation, responsible production

Related projects

  • Greenomed (INTERREG MED): EU network of pilot plants practicing green manufacturing to remain competitive and contribute towards Green Growth. (GREENOMED Results Factsheet)
  • SCREEN (Horizon 2020): development and animation of an Expert Network which will contribute to expert advice in support of decision-making at the EU level covering all the raw materials and their value chains screened in the CRMs assessment. (https://scrreen.eu/)
  • FiberEUse (Horizon 2020): Large scale demonstration of new circular economy value-chains based on the reuse of end-of-life fibre reinforced composites. (http://fibereuse.eu/)
    • CarE-Service (Horizon 2020): Innovative Circular Economy Business Models based on advanced mobility services exploiting hybrid and electric vehicles. (https://www.careserviceproject.eu/)
  • DigiPrime (Horizon 2020): a circular economy digital platform in order to create circular business models based on the data-enhanced recovery and reuse of functions and materials. (https://www.digiprime.eu/)
  • AI REGIO (Horizon 2020): The AI REGIO “Regions and Digital Innovation Hubs alliance for AI-driven digital transformation of European Manufacturing SMEs”, will build a one-stop-shop platform that enables access to resources for AI-based solutions in efficient and sustainable manufacturing, with particular emphasis on resources that can lower the AI adoption barriers for SMEs. (https://www.airegio)
  • AI REDGIO 5.0 (Horizon Europe): to promote the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Edge Computing technologies in the Manufacturing sector, particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). (AVAILABLE SOON: https://www.airedgio5-0.eu)
  • Circular TwAIn (Jul 2022, Jun 2025) HE project ( https://www.circular-twain-project.eu/ )
  • Bio-Uptake (Dec 2022, May 2026) HE project ( https://www.bio-uptake-project.eu )
  • BATMASS EU circular BATtery valley for second life, recycling, and re-manufacturing of materials and black MASS. BATMASS aims to implement the first EU Circular Battery Valley. It offers a portfolio of cross-regional investments in TRL6+ innovations in circular technologies and processes for battery materials. BATMASS will mobilize a fully comprehensive interregional ecosystem around 4 Demonstrators (or ‘Demo lighthouses’) meant to scale up, commercialize and deploy breakthrough GreenTech. ( https://batmass.corporaciontecnologica.com/ )
  • DeremCo De-and Remanufacturing for Circular Economy Investments in the Composite Industry. The DeremCo project aims to establish a Circular Economy solution that will unlock the cost-effective reuse of post-use composite materials and components in new high-added value products. ( https://deremco.afil.it )
  • Closer Market analysis, and exploitation related to the circular economy applied to semiconductors, to make European manufacturing less dependent on critical materials.
  • IRMHUB will deploy for the first time in EU a large scale interregional Raw Material (RM) GREEN and CIRCULAR supply innovation investment pipeline in the form of a Meta-Hub.

Contact

Lombardy

Catalonia

Auvergne Rhone Alpes

Latest news and upcoming events

  • All the news and next events related to ESM partnership are integrated in the newsletter, subscribe here: https://forms.office.com/e/7APjjWJ89m
  • Be part of the Circular European Battery Valley Mapping , started in BATMASS project: Circular Battery Valley | BATMASS (corporaciontecnologica.com)
  • 2024: Launch of DeremCo Open Calls.
  • Recent activities: definition of new emerging topics and development of activities through the submission of projects (HE, Interreg, I3 applications), monitoring of the already active EU projects, promotion of Open Calls (past: DigiPrime and AI REGIO projects, ongoing: DeremCo and AI REDGIO projects), organisation and connection with dedicated events, such as the Smart Plastic International Congress, the ESM Pilot and De- and Re-manufacturing for Circular Economy demo-case Plenary Meetings. Link with other significant initiatives ongoing: EDIH network, other S3 partnerships (AI&HMI, AMBP), EEN network, EIT Manufacturing.
  • 27 March 2024: Clusters meet Regions Twin Transition: Italian ecosystems and the European agenda for sustainability – Side event
  • June 2024: kick off of the Manufacturing Innovation Alliance
  • October 2024 The importance of EU networks. Presenting Vanguard to secondary schools
  • 20-21 November 2024 Plastix OSDD event with Regione Lombardia
  • December 2024 Participation to S3CoP at Rimini event