Next Generation Production Systems

The SME Office

2007-11-23T10:20:00.000+01:00

Next project have organized the SME Office to connect external industrial SMEs to the NEXT project through the provision of specific services.

This office will become a Contact and Enquiry Point for SMEs which, on request, will provide information on available, useful and usable expertise, developed in the NEXT Integrated Project.

It will support, also, set-up Collaboration Agreements between SMEs and NEXT partners.

The main goals for this office are:

To attract SMEs with technology to contribute to NEXT or exploit technology
To manage Relationship between SME and NEXT research partner
To offer Financial support for SME from NEXT partner budget
To facilitate the participation of SMEs in Open call for proposals

The SME Office will be a permanent feature of NEXT, hosted and operated by CECIMO.

There are two different points to contact with the office:

Through the webpage of the project (http://www.nextproject.eu)
Requesting from SMEs for technical and business information addressed to CECIMO.

Talking about NEXT Project

2007-11-19T11:24:00.000+01:00

Interview to Rikardo Bueno, Director for the Scientific Policy of Fatronik and Next Project Coordinator.

Perhaps you could start with a few words on the genesis of the project?

The project started as a joint initiative of diverse machine-tool companies and research centres in Europe, that joined their efforts in a way without precedents to make a big integrated project that would face the most iportant research challenges fotr the machine-tool industry in Europe.

In your opinion, what made your project so particularly successful to earn it a position among these 40 projects?

Probably because it is the flagship project of an important sector of the European industry, where technology is fundamental for the competitiveness. Also because it integrates not only technological research, but also research topics related to the way of doing business and addresses also trining and dissemination in an integrated way.

What have been the project’s main achievements, both in terms of concrete results as well as what it represents for ‘EU research’?

We are now at around 50% of the life of the project. We have already got real breakthroughs in terms of ecological machines and production processes, in terms of machine usability and machine and process performance. Also new business models have been proposed for the sector.

Where does NEXT, and similar initiatives, figure into the future of Europe’s knowledge-based economy?

NEXT is a means for the participating companies to reinforce their competitiveness by means of innovating products and processes. This way of the innovation, i.e., to put into practice the knowledge generated in project such as NEXT, is the way to compete in this sector that is totally globalised.

What has been the EC’s role in the development/success of the project?

It has been fundamental. Not only bacause of the funding, which is extremely important, but also for the support at the preparation and at project lifetime, support in order to get the most of our project, in terms of scientific and economical impacts, in terms of dissemination, and also supporting us to show our work at global scale.

What’s next for NEXT?

There are still two years of project in fron of us, we must complete NEXT, get the best results, and have an economical impact in the participating companies.

And simply, is there anything in particular you would like a summary such as this to say about your project?

I would like to show our project as an initiative that will benefit a whole manufacturing sector, directly with the project results, and indirectly, showing that European machine-tool builders can work together to achieve very ambitious goals.

For you, what is the main message you would like others, i.e. researchers interested in EU-funded research, policy makers, stakeholders, general public, etc. to know about your project?

NEXT is defining and developing the basis of the machine-tools of the future: clean, user friendly and extremely performant, in a team of participants with some of the best companies and research organisations in Europe.

Next in the EMO 2007

2007-11-14T14:10:00.000+01:00

Thanks to the coordination of CECIMO, during the last edition of the EMO event, it was organized a conference on 21 September 2007, "How to exploit innovative technologies and business practices", related to the "Next Generation Production Systems Project", that was a successful event (link)

You can access to all the material of the conference in the Project Website (link)

166 500 visitors came to Hannover, Germany between the dates of 17 and 22 September to buy machines, place orders and find out about the latest developments in the world of metal-working.
This represented an increase of 4 percent over the previous event two years ago, when EMO still ran for a total of eight days. Even the number of exhibitors - 2,120 exhibitors from 42 different nations - was up five percent, and the amount of occupied floor space was also up by 12 percent, reaching a total volume of 180,158 net square meters.

Over 37 percent of trade visitors came from abroad Europe, from a total of 80 different nations. Commensurate with the high level of European demand for machine tools, the number of visitors from Western Europe was up sharply, particularly from Switzerland, France, Italy, Sweden and Austria. The biggest contingents of visitors from overseas were from India and the United States.

EMO Hannover 2007 gave the international machine tool sector an enormous shot in the arm. According to the official exhibitor survey, this year's EMO show generated an order volume of 4 billion euros. More than half of all exhibitors were anticipating a positive influence on subsequent German and European sales.

You can access to all the related information in the EMO Website

The next EMO will take place from 5 to 10 October 2009 in Milan, Italy.

Self-calibration and predictive maintenance

2007-11-14T13:56:00.000+01:00

Fidia is also responsible for this Exploitaiton Result that consits in of 3 software modules:

Software module for Data Mining: it collects data from sensors, filters them, and extracts some indexes indicating the state of “health” of the mechanical parts;
Software module for Decision support: it has to decide if the machine needs to be tuned, or any mechanical part should be substituted;
Software module for Tuning: it performs an optimization of machine performances through the modification of dynamical values.

Developments performed (Data Mining module able to perform the following tests)

Velocity step response
Linear interpolation between couples of axes
Circular interpolation between couples of axes
Current – velocity – torsion

This module collects data from sensors through the NC software, but is not integrated in it. This allows to develop additional complex off-line elaborations of these data and to store them into external dataBases. Results of the tests can be used for predictive maintenance, but also for automatic tuning of position loop gain, acceleration and path error.

Device for measurement and compensation of inaccuracies in rotary axes

2007-11-14T13:52:00.000+01:00

The Head Measuring System (“HMS”) is an innovative device to be used as a system for testing, measuring and compensating bi-rotary heads. It is composed of a hardware artefact, a measuring software system and procedures that allow to perform the bi-rotary head inspection and compensation.

Developments performed:

Measurement of pivot and misalignment for bi-rotary head with misalignment
Measurement of Parameters for Roto-Tilting Tables (running)
Measurement of Parameters for bi-rotary Nutating head (running)

The responsible for this exploitable result is Fidia

Project partners: ONA

2007-08-24T12:12:00.000+02:00

The research activities of ONA within NEXT project are focused on the development of high technological and more environmentally friendly Electrical Discharge Machines (EDM).

The activities are focused on covering two main objectives:

Reducing the Environmental impact of Electrical Discharge Machine (EDM), during its whole product life cycle, e.g. development, use and disposal.
Improving machine performances and efficiency.

The use phase of EDM machines, during its whole lifetime, has the most adverse influence on the environment.
Filtration consumables, waste generation, and energy consumption are the major impacts that affect negatively to the environment.

Therefore, the research activities of ONA are focused on:

Improving machine performances.
Reducing the environmental impact of products and processes.
Optimising raw material consumption.
Reducing energy use.
Ensuring compliance with environmental regulations.
Contributing to a better global environment.

Current status:

Development of Wire Electrical Discharge Machines (WEDM) with enhanced performances and better environment behaviour.
Filtration systems improvements.

For more information about the ONA ELECTROEROSION, S.A.: www.ona-electroerosion.com

NEXT Conference – How to exploit innovative technologies and business practices?

2007-07-23T11:42:00.000+02:00

http://www.nextproject.eu/events

EMO Event
21th September, 2007
Programme

9:00 Registration

9:30 Welcome and Introduction

Mr Derek Palethorpe, CECIMO Secretary General
Mr Andrea Gentili, NEXT Project Officer - DG Research, European Commission
Fatronik (Spain) - NEXT Project Coordinator

10:00 Eco-efficient Machining Processes: a Key for European Competitiveness

Andrea Gallino, CFR (Italy)

10:30 Autonomous Machine Tools in Modern Production Sites

Mr Drazen Veselovac, WZL Aachen (Germany)

11:00 The Manufacturing Breakthrough

Mr Christian Möhring, IFW Hannover (Germany)

11:30 New Business Models for a Sustainable Global Competitiveness

Mr Giacomo Copani, ITIA (Italy)

12:00 The SME Office

Mr Derek Palethorpe, CECIMO Secretary General

12:30 Lunch

New Business Concepts in Industrial Machines Tools

2007-07-23T10:29:00.000+02:00

Last Wednesday, 4th of July, 2007, it was organized a second training workshop “New Business Cocepts in Industrial Machines Tools” in Budapest.

There were 19 attendants, from 10 different organizations and 5 European countries.

The programme of the workshop was developed in two main sessions, the former during the morning and the latter during the afternoon, according the following agenda:

MORNING SESSION

Introduction: current situation of the Machine Tool Industry and needs for business model innovation
New Business Concepts outside Machine Tool Industry: an industrial case
Intentions of New Business Concepts adoption in Machine Tool Industry: evidence from Next Machine Builders partners

AFTERNOON SESSION

New Business Concepts in Machine Tool Industry: typologies and actual diffusion
Instruments for New Business Concepts design and implementation
Open discussion

The workshop was chaired by Derek Palethorpe (Cecimo). He introduced the topics to be described during the day and presented the concept of “Business Model” starting from an available definition given by the literature and describing all the actors involved in it. This brief introduction was useful to clarify the concept underlying all the presentations presented in the workshop.

After this first introduction, Helene Hotellier (Cecimo) presented the current situation of the European machine tool industry, supported by some economical data and trends. Despite the positive trend and expectations for the future characterizing the sector, the available data revealed a worrying gap existing between the European orders of machine tools in comparison with the rest of the world, especially the emerging Countries like China. This gap makes necessary the renewal of the current business models adopted in machine tool industry and the development of new ones able to compensate the loss in the sales of new machines and to differentiate the offer to the customers including an increase number of added value services. This economical introduction was appreciated and useful to sensitize the attention towards the real need of new business models for the European manufacturing sector.

Ferruccio Longo (Plastal) presented the development of an innovative business model adopted by his company outside the machine tool industry. His presentation was well appreciated and roused the participants’ interest because the described scenario was considered as a quite significant example of new business model. The found problems, difficulties and benefits were further deepened on participants’ request in order to better understand the effective configuration of the scenario and the potentiality of its application in machine tool industry.

The morning session was concluded by the presentation of Itziar Ricondo (Danobat). She presented the composition and the activities of the Danobat group and described the new business models already applied by some companies belonging to it in manufacturing sector. The implementation of these business models was due to the need to solve some market needs and problems through the offering of different solutions involving different actors within the supply chain. The main differences between the traditional business models and the new ones implemented by the company have been also presented as well as the main difficulties and expected benefits.

The afternoon session started with the presentation of Marcus Schroeter and Sabine Biege (Fraunhofer ISI). Supported by the results of the European Manufacturing Survey (EMS), they presented the current diffusion of new business models in European machine tool industry and the main reasons underlying it. The four types of already implemented new business models have been also described on the base of the requirement analysis preformed during the first year of Next project. At the end, the main requirements needed for a successful and wider implementation of new business models have been outlined.

Starting from these requirements, Giacomo Copani (ITIA-CNR) described the complexity of the decision process at the base of the adoption of a new business model. He presented the three steps process developed in Next project in order to reduce such complexity; this process leads to the effective implementation of a new business model starting from multiple possible solutions. The main tools and methodologies supporting each phase of the process were also described at a general level presenting the main outputs of each of them. One comment coming from a participant was addressed to the need for the managers within companies to have clear the logics and criteria underlying the results obtained with each tool since such results should be the starting point for their decisions and are considered critical to be managed.

All the presentation during the workshop were well appreciated and received by the attendants that agreed on the effectiveness of such an event to spread the new business models concepts and sensitise the industrial world about the need of their implementation. A possible occasion to do this will be the EMO in September where an event to present the Next project will be organized. One comment coming from a participant was the need to carefully evaluate the real applicability of new business models in industry because of the multiple variables of the external environment (e.g. taxation, etc.) that can interfere with their effective implementation in some Countries.

2 DOF ultra high dynamics pick and place robot

2007-07-18T12:53:00.000+02:00

Fatronik jhas published a new 'Exploitable Result' for the NEXT project on its website: '2 DOF ultra high dynamics pick and place robot'.

It consists in the development of a novel 2 DOF architecture for ultra high dynamics pick and place tasks with this characteristics:

Acceleration: 30G – 50G
Precision: <>
Payload: 2 Kg maximum
Adept cycle (25/700/25): 0.3 s
Market focus: agribussiness, electronics

And this is its current status:

Current status:

Architecture of robot selected
Parameter optimization fulfilled
Manufacturing of first prototype under process
Rigid model control development

Exploitable result, Track "Green Machines"

2007-07-18T12:45:00.000+02:00

There has been published the first 'Exploitable Result' concerning to the Track 1, "Green Machines" of the project: 'Altenative process for manufacturing of aeronautical structural parts'

It try to cover two objectives:

Primary objective: reduce dramatically the enviromental impact of the manufacturing process of the structural parts present int he aeronautic sector.
Secondary objective: development of a manufacturing process and machine to fullfill the environmental requirements

Its current status is:

Alternative manufacturing process based od friction stir welding (FSW) under development: test part defined and start of the definition of the manufacturing process
Building of machine to support the FSW process: machine architecture defined and definition of critical machine components started.

Fatronik is the responsible of this exploitable result.

Exploitable Results (July 2007)

2007-07-03T12:47:00.000+02:00

Click on each one to consult them:

Eco-evaluation Day

2007-06-30T18:23:00.001+02:00

As part of the work in the Track5 of the project, "New contents for training and dissemination around production equipment", last tuesday, 26th June 2007, it was organized a 'pilot training action' in Lausanne.

There were five talks and a demonstration included in the day.

The agenda was as follows:

Welcome and presentation of LICP (Prof. Paul Xirouchakis)
Introduction and overview (Ian Stroud)
LCA and eco-evaluation (Luca Mozzanica)
The Evaluation model (Vincent Capponi)
User needs: CRF (Andrea Gallino)
New business models use of evaluations (Giacomo Copani)
NEXT goals: (Ian Stroud using Rikardo Bueno’s material)
Demonstrations and discussions (Oliver Avram)

There were 13 attendants from 8 different organizations:

EPFL: Robin Amacher, Simone Pedrazzini, Robert Witik
EPFL, STI-IPR-LIC: Oliver Avram. Vincent Capponi, Ian Stroud, Min-Jung Yoo
Nicolas Correa SA: Andres Bustillo
ITIA – CNR: Giacomo Copani
Centro Ricerche FIAT: Andrea Gallino
CTME: Eva Martinez
Ce.S.I.: Luca Mozzanica
Firmenich S.A.: Daniel Placci

Feedback from this training action will be evaluated on the T5 coordination meeting in Budapest, during 5th and 6th, July 2007.

Integrated Project Next

2007-06-29T11:52:00.000+02:00

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.