CASES

Customised Advisory Services for Energy-efficient Manufacturing Systems

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'This CASES project is aimed at teaming up trans-continental researchers in the areas of sustainable design/manufacturing and ICT to enrich the knowledge base and achieve research synergies to develop smart design and manufacturing planning services in terms of energy efficiency. The objectives include: (1) To establish an active international community and effective communication channel for research teams from various regions of the EU, China and Ukraine to collaborate in the research area of eco-design and energy-efficient manufacturing planning. (2) To integrate the complementary expertise of the European, Chinese and Ukrainian teams to devise ICT-based smart services and standards to address the multi-faceted requirements of eco-design and sustainable manufacturing planning. Activities include: • The impact of globally sustainable trends on the current practices in the EU, China and Ukraine would be evaluated and relevant strategies and best practices will be proposed; • Research in eco-design, manufacturing planning, cloud and service-oriented computing, and computational intelligence will be synchronised to develop innovative smart services. (3) To leverage the geographical characteristics of all teams for research evaluation, improvement and dissemination. The plan includes: • The smart services, acquired from the integration of research, systems and algorithms within the teams, will be deployed geographically dispersed for evaluation and improvement; • Knowledge sharing and outreach activities will be organised for relevant communities and stakeholders in the EU, China and Ukraine to increase the awareness of the proposed solutions to enable them to shift towards sustainability efficiently.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Manufacturing is a key driver of jobs and growth in Europe, and technologies increasing efficiency in the use of energy and materials guide the industry's competitiveness. An EU initiative is helping small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) reduce energy consumption during the manufacturing process.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Manufacturing addresses the challenge of producing more while consuming fewer materials, using less energy and creating less waste. However, the majority of manufacturing companies, particularly SMEs, lack basic guidelines or tools for efficient energy use.

The EU-funded 'Customised advisory services for energy-efficient manufacturing systems' (http://www.fp7cases.eu (CASES)) project is bringing together Chinese, European and Ukrainian researchers from the sustainable manufacturing and information and communications technology (ICT) fields. The overall aim is to advance knowledge and build research synergies for the development of smart design and manufacturing services for energy efficiency.

Team members are drawing upon their expertise to provide manufacturing SMEs with innovative targeted business and technology solutions. These will remove the financial, political, legal and technical barriers to optimising energy consumption.

To devise solutions for eco-design and manufacturing sustainability, researchers have created a knowledge network to exchange up-to-date research on eco-design, sustainable manufacturing management practices and ICT. They have assessed the effect of sustainable developments on existing practices in China, the EU and Ukraine, and will put forward approaches and best practices based on these.

Researchers have also created a cloud computing and service-based information architecture to assist in the management of eco-design and manufacturing planning. In future project work, they will develop a design for energy-efficient manufacturing services to be integrated into the architecture.

Ongoing work in CASES is expected to yield smart solutions enabling SMEs to boost manufacturing efficiency in energy use.