Integrated Project Next

The Integrated Project NEXT aims at committing the main players at European production equipment industry to new frontiers in diverse fields.

The main objectives relate to:

• THE GREEN MACHINES: Radical innovation forward in environmentally friendly production machines.
  The aim is to get machines that consider environmental aspects through their entire life-cycle:
  - use of recycled materials for machine elements (>50%),
  - reduction of energy consumption (25% at least) at machine use,
  - zero waste produced,
  - dismantling and recycling of 100% machines and non-pollutant alternative processes.
• THE USER CENTRIC AUTONOMOUS MACHINE. Breakthrough in usability and machine autonomy.
  The objective is to get production machines that help and support the operator in all his/her tasks by a complete set of features (added applications and intelligent modules, ergonomic aspects, improved maintenance and operation aspects and knowledge bases) heading for users support and satisfaction as well as automatically recognise manufacturing tasks and process conditions.
• THE MANUFACTURING BREAKTHROUGH: New processes due to a big leap in performance and innovative processing methods.
  Process controlled high performance production equipment.
  The aim is to get between 2x and 5x improvement in machine productivity, as well as up to an order of magnitude improvement in machine accuracy, compared to currently available machines and processes.
• NEW BUSINESS PARADIGM FOR MACHINERY: A Breakthrough to create value for the production machinery business.
  The exploitation objectives of the project target the commercialisation of the results of the project, by the industrial companies involved, by the generation of take-up companies and by the definition of new ways of doing business in the production machinery sector (e.g. selling production hours instead of machines).
  From the beginning of the project, this track is performing economic research looking for new ways of creating value.
• NEW CONTENTS FOR TRAINING, MARKETING AND DISSEMINATION AROUND PRODUCTION EQUIPMENT, to make such a sector more attractive to society.
  New contents for training courses and skills are being provided.
  Action, including Marketing strategies, are be taken to make the production world (industry and research) attractive so that people would like to see it as a promising and enthusiasting professional environment.
  Moreover studies on socio-economic aspects are being carried out to assess the impact of the knowledge and technologies here generated, including analysis of factors which influence exploitation, like standardisation, ethical aspect, Gender issues and including also roadmap initiative for monitoring new manufacturing emergence and needs.
  

The project is structured along the objective tracks, considering each track as a sub-project with its objectives.

Each main track is composed by research on supporting technologies, development by application of the new technologies to the specific objectives, demonstrators showing the result of the R&D .

The project is structured along the objective tracks, considering each track as a sub-project with its objectives.

Each main track is composed by research on supporting technologies, development by application of the new technologies to the specific objectives, demonstrators showing the result of the R&D and training modules.

The 3 technical tracks are supported by technologies.