OPEN INNOVATION PLATFORM FOR OPTIMISING PRODUCTION SYSTEMS BY COMBINING PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT, VIRTUAL ENGINEERING WORKFLOWS AND PRODUCTION DATA

Nowadays, European manufacturing enterprises are facing a number of challenges in a turbulent globalized market facing unprecedented and abrupt changes in market demands, an ever-increasing number of product variants and smaller lot sizes, intensifying the worldwide competition and causing a continuous pressure on production costs, product quality and production efficiency. Therefore, novel product development strategies for ensuring and optimising the manufacturing of new products or variants in low-volume production systems must be implemented. PIONEER aims the development of an open innovation platform and interoperable digital pipeline for addressing a design-by-simulation optimisation framework. For that, PIONEER implements inline feedforward control strategies for enhancing the efficiency of the industrial systems in high-mix/low-volume production schemes, based on the connection between materials modelling and materials characterisation, simulation-based digital twins and data-driven models, updated through distributed production data from embedded IoT edge devices and product quality.

PIONEER is built over five pillars for development a common methodology deployed in two demonstrators by involving multidisciplinary optimisation for ensuring certified path planning strategies for the manufacturing of topology optimised structural elements through Wire-Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) in construction –i.e., low-volume production schemes–, as well as for ensuring an efficient design and manufacturing strategy for the manufacturing of Carbon Fibre Sheet Moulding Compound (CF-SMC) components in automotive –i.e., high-mix production schemes–.

PIONEER is built on the knowledge and results gained in i) previous H2020 EU projects; ii) associations –i.e. EMMC ASBL, IOF, VMAP Standard Community, IDTA—; and iii) commercial products from project partners.