EU FP7 Projekt DEMAT

Projekt DEMAT

Dematerialised Production Systems: A new way to design, build, use, and sell European Machine Tools.

Thematische Stichwörter

Rekonfigurierung, Ressourceneffizienz, Ganzheitliche Betrachtung

Kurzbeschreibung/Abstract

This project aims at dematerialising the machine tools and manufacturing systems that are conceived and produced in Europe. In particular, this project aims at transforming European machine builders, the majority of them SMEs, from currently producing heavy, long-delivery-time and high-energy-consuming machines to proposing to customers tailored combinations of extremely light-weighted, mechanically non-stiff, skeletal and low-environmental-impact machines that will be integrated with total life-cycle services based on innovative win-to-win business models. The underlying idea behind this concept is that European machine builders conceive machines as combinations of easily exchangeable modules that consist of ultra-light and adaptive skeletal structures. These skeletal structures will be conceived considering structure, control strategies and processes in an integral way for satisfying the functional requirements and for assuring the optimal global robustness and reliability of the machine with the minimum possible material amount.

This dematerialisation approach will thus break the link between production results and the material structure of machines and will reduce the total-life-cycle impacts and costs of machines in a radical manner. Then, by integrating a number of dematerialised machines with innovative business models and total-life-cycle services, European machine builders will be able to realize Dematerialised Manufacturing Systems with customised flexibility. This holistic approach for designing, producing and using Dematerialised Manufacturing Systems integrated with total-life cycle services will coin a new concept in the European manufacturing sector: the Dematerialised Manufacturing Solutions, that will pave the way for transforming the European SME-intensive machine-tool industry into a Knowledge-based, Competitive, Sustainable and Value-Adding sector.

The DEMAT Consortium has agreed that Dematerialising machine tool functionalities and replacing them with immaterial goods such as total life-cycle customised services, active robustness, human knowledge and machine autonomy is the basis on which a competitive, sustainable, knowledge-based and value-added manufacturing sector may be built. In fact, the reality is that with only 20% of the material of machine structural elements of a conventional machine is possible to hold machine components and to meet kinematic requirements on the machine, so that the only added value that the remaining 80% of material supplies is to assure a stiff and precise machine performance.

Within this view, the DEMAT Consortium has decided to tackle a challenging approach:

1. To relieve the structural elements of providing accuracy and robustness in a passive mechanical way, transferring those functionalities to active skeletal modules equipped with distributed sensors and actuators combined with artificial intelligence technologies, active robustness and control strategies
2. To integrate Dematerialised Machines with other similar machines and with immaterial goods and services such as customised manufacturing services and human-capital based services, for achieving Dematerialised Manufacturing Systems with a customised degree of flexibility (Focused-Flexibility)
3. To integrate Dematerialised Machines and Dematerialised Manufacturing Systems with ltotal life-cycle services and novel business models enabled by this new generation of machines and systems.
4. To connect the stakeholders of the manufacturing value chain with a Information Sharing Platform

This fourfold approach will lead the DEMAT Consortium to implement a new concept in the European Manufacturing sector, namely the Dematerialised Manufacturing Solutions as shown in the figure below.

Ansprechpartner

• Dipl.-Ing. Stefanie Apprich, Dipl.-Phys. Alexander Huf