Objective
Europe currently dominates the global machine tools market by providing some 52% of the worldwide value of machine tool production in 2002. However, globalisation of the machinery industry that is composed of 70% by SME has recently intensified. The market environment is becoming more competitive, low labour costs in many parts of the world are attracting production away from Europe. Moreover, the economic recession that culminated in 2001 created an urgent need for the machine tool manufacturers to propose more cost-effective and environmentally friendly products.
The overall objective of PROLIMA, is to provide European machine tools manufacturing SMEs with means to develop machines with minimum environmental impact and optimised global life cycle costs. The project will have a strong focus on cutting based machines tools, which includes grinding, milling and turning, but generic results could be further applied in other sectors.
The PROLIMA project intends to have a substantial impact on 2 major phases of the life cycle of machine tools:
- Design phase: development of an holistic method to design machine tools integrating information on Life Cycle Cost (LCC), on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and on Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety (RAMS). The developed method will be implemented within a Decision Support System that will be used for design purposes.
- Operation; use phase: to provide SMEs manufacturing / using machine tools with practical solutions adapted to their sector (LCA tool, environmental best practice manual, ?) to improve in the short term the environmental impact and the cost-effectiveness of their machine tools.
The PROLIMA project gathers 7 IAGs, 12 SMEs and 6 RTDs from 5 EU countries.
Field of science
- /natural sciences/computer and information sciences/software
- /social sciences/other social sciences/social sciences interdisciplinary/sustainable development
Call for proposal
FP6-2003-SME-2
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Collective - SMEs-Collective research projectsCoordinator
San Sebastian
Spain
Participants (22)
Brussel
Helsinki
Madrid
'S-hertogenbosch
Brussels
Zoetermeer
Bergara
Roeselare
Aachen
Ispaster
Elgoibar
Etxebarria
Göttingen
Zumaia
Laihia
Elgoibar
Espoo
Brussels
Delft
Aachen
Eibar
Zweibruecken