Factory-level and value chain approaches for remanufacturing (Made in Europe Partnership) (IA)

Topic description

ExpectedOutcome:

Manufacturing industry should benefit from the following outcomes:

• Suitably scaled green and digital technologies supporting remanufacturing, for circular value chains in industrial ecosystems;
• Remanufacturing of both components and products towards full circularity while retaining value or functions of components;
• Skills and education capabilities for remanufacturing.

Remanufacturing is an industrial process in which at least one change is made to waste products or components affecting their safety, performance, purpose or type. Remanufacturing aims to retain the usefulness of both products and components and is an essential step in achieving full industrial circularity without implying deterioration of the product.

This calls for both remanufacturing technologies at the factory level and their integration into circular value chains, including the streamlining data to support remanufacturing. Remanufacturing should not be focused only on the reuse of raw materials but should be aimed at reusing and upscaling components, valorising them and retaining or upgrading their functionality. Components, products and/or functions can be updated with new technology and improved beyond their initial functionality. Ultimately, remanufacturing is indirectly expected to reduce the level of resource consumption and hence also the level of CO₂-intensity of components.

Proposals should address technologies within specific industrial sectors or across industrial sectors:

• Develop cutting-edge remanufacturing approaches (design, technologies, business cases) and their integration into value chains;
• Demonstrate remanufacturing processes that retain components functionality in at least three user cases;
• The introduction of traceability aspects, quality control and a regulatory validation need to be considered;
• Repurposing of components into a variety of industrial sectors. Introduce flexible production concepts, advanced machinery, smart mechatronics, interactive and collaborative machines, robots and systems enabling efficient factory operation and reconfiguration;
• Consider operational and economic viability while also the environmental impact of the proposed approach.

A human-centric approach to remanufacturing should be integrated, with appropriate contributions from Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH); as part of this, a strategy for skills development should be included, associating social partners where relevant. This may include augmenting technologies and skills to strengthen the capabilities of the European workforce. Collaboration with EIT Manufacturing is encouraged, in particular on the development of skills.

Proposals submitted under this topic should include a business case and exploitation strategy, as outlined in the introduction to this Destination.

Proposals should take the relevant EU-regulatory framework into account such as the Ecodesign Directive and the forthcoming Sustainable Product Framework (SPI)^[1].

Proposals should take into account any relevant international standards (such as the Asset Administration Shell) and activities supported under the Digital Europe programme, e.g. in the area of Manufacturing Data Spaces and the Digital Product Passport initiative.

Research must build on existing standards or contribute to future standardisation. Interoperability for data sharing must be addressed, leveraging on existing ontologies and metadata and though the implementation of the FAIR data principles.^[2]

Where relevant, proposals should contribute to standardisation of relevant technologies.

All projects should build on or seek collaboration with existing projects and develop synergies with other relevant European, national or regional initiatives, funding programmes.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership Made in Europe.

Activities are expected to start at TRL 5 and achieve TRL 7 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.

[1]https://ec.europa.eu/environment/publications/proposal-ecodesign-sustainable-products-regulation_en

[2]Turning FAIR into reality: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/turning_fair_into_reality_1.pdf