IMS2020: Supporting global research for IMS 2020 Vision

Final Report Summary - IMS2020 (IMS2020: Supporting global research for IMS 2020 Vision)

Executive summary:

IMS2020 is a Coordinating Action promoted by the European Commission to support IMS activities by developing a visionary roadmap for the collaborative research within the different IMS regions.

The roadmap has been delivered to the EC, and focuses upon the identification of relevant manufacturing research topics and supporting actions which need to be fostered through international cooperation between 2011 and 2013. These are critical Research Topics, grouped in Research Actions which - when implemented - will allow the achievement of the defined IMS2020 Vision and thus the shaping of manufacturing systems by the year 2020 and beyond.

During the second half of the Project, the World Manufacturing Forum has been organized in order to involve the IMS Community as well as the global industrial and scientific community interested in manufacturing.

According to this, the objectives of the Forum were:
1: Establishing a remarkable and visible worldwide event for bringing together industrial, political and scientific leaders
2: Establishing a Programme Committee reflecting a dense distribution along IMS and EU as one main stakeholder as well as having experts in the organization of events of that scale
3: Attracting high-level worldwide members for the Executive Committee
4: Offering a wide opportunity of topics interesting for all three main target audiences.

Project Context and Objectives:
The context in which the IMS2020 Project was included is referred to the provision of an effective interface to ongoing European road-mapping activities and the creation of research synergies at international level through establishment of inter-regional manufacturing communities in the five Key Areas of Activity of IMS (from now on: IMS Key Areas).

IMS Key Areas are five priority topics that have been identified for international cooperation among IMS participant regions:
(i) Sustainable manufacturing,
(ii) Energy efficient manufacturing,
(iii) Key technologies,
(iv) Standards, and
(v) Education.

In order to enhance R&D on these wide and complex topics, international co-operation is needed. A global and heterogeneous perspective will allow the creation of synergies for better addressing the issues involved in these IMS Key Areas.

The mission of IMS2020 was to support global European-centric research in the IMS Key Areas, by creating a knowledge sharing community within IMS initiative, and also by linking to on-going European relevant activities (such as European Technology Platform, etc.) and to relevant manufacturing R&D programmes in non-European countries.

The IMS2020 Consortium combined together industries, industrial associations, research centres and universities coming from all IMS Regions (EU, Switzerland, USA, Korea, and Japan). Therefore, the project had many different perspectives, knowledge and technical skills. IMS2020 gathered emerging trends and diverse visions on manufacturing from all over the world and, by bringing them to Europe, IMS2020 supported the development of European manufacturing innovation strategy.

IMS2020 project mapped and analysed on-going major research activities and conducted foresight analyses to derive a set of recommendations for future 2020 manufacturing research. These recommendations included:
- roadmaps for suggesting R&D orientation and prioritized topics, with also dedicated sections on the needs and opportunities of SMEs,
- proposals for new schemes and frameworks of co-operation research support among IMS regions,
- identification of specific SME-focused actions to enhance SME participation in IMS research.

The IMS2020 project benefitted from the heritage of the successful initiative IMS NoE (Network of Excellence on Intelligent Manufacturing Systems, IST-2001-65001), since Politecnico di Milano was its co-ordinator. IMS NoE started on June 2002 and finished in May 2005, involving more than 300 members interested in IMS topics. The main aim of the IMS NoE was to create strong cooperation links among industries, research centres and academic institutions on topics related to intelligent manufacturing. The IMS2020 took advantage of the experience and the relevant results achieved by the IMS NoE, exploiting the existence of a well established and active community of excellent centres in the field of manufacturing.

IMS2020 was a coordination and support action for strengthening international and inter-regional co-operation in IMS. In particular, the project had five main scientific and technical objectives:
IMS2020 Objective 1: To prepare a coherent roadmap for future (2020) manufacturing research in the five IMS Key Areas, providing an effective interface to ongoing European road-mapping activities of European Technology Platforms (and similar initiatives) and to non-EU governmental road-mapping activities. The roadmap provided with a list of topics, suitable to IMS cooperation.
IMS2020 Objective 2: To identify new schemes and frameworks to support IMS research by enhancing and favouring inter-regional cooperation projects.
IMS2020 Objective 3: To identify specific SME-focused measures to increase SME participation in international R&D co-operative projects, within IMS initiative.
IMS2020 Objective 4: To build, establish and consolidate a number of international and inter-regional communities in the five Key Areas of IMS, in which ensures effective exchange of results and knowledge.
IMS2020 Objective 5: To prepare the ground for new IMS proposals (this involves objectives 2, 3 and 4), both paving the way for the legislation and creating a knowledge network, to discuss and inform about the manufacturing project possibilities.

Project Results:
IMS2020 aimed at contributing to the international research efforts in IMS through a set of specific actions addressed to the five IMS Key Areas. IMS2020 took advantage from the huge works done by European Technology Platforms; in fact, the most relevant ETPs for IMS2020 topics were involved through common beneficiaries within the consortium. This increased the completeness of the mapping activity and created strong and robust basis for the roadmapping.

IMS2020 formulated an integrated roadmap for the five IMS Key Areas, with the benefit of the coordination of the deep and wide knowledge of IMS2020 members on the different IMS Key Areas. Being IMS2020 an action taken within the framework of IMS, the roadmap focused on topics which are relevant for research at international level: the roadmap didn't analyse only research topics whose impact is global but also which required an effort done by more than one IMS region to be performed at high quality level.

KAT1 SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING RESULTS

In the first IMS Key Area (KAT1), IMS2020 focused on proposing guidelines for the on-going and future research on Sustainable manufacturing. The entire lifecycle of the product or process has been taken into account by the proper KAT, paying close attention to the technology adoption to support the use and assessment of resources and materials from their design phase, through production until the end of life. Thanks to the wide backgrounds of the beneficiaries involved in the consortium, IMS2020 was able to consider the evaluation of technologies for sustainable manufacturing, as far as processes, as well as the management of technologies and advances to assess industrial safety and reliability in terms of materials (i.e. addressing nanomaterials) bearing in mind hazardous materials. Moreover, the broader safety platforms on occupational injury prevention, workplace ergonomic considerations, and maintenance that keep the work environment safe for workers has been considered. The role of technologies to hold standards and regulations on the politics of manufacturing have been considered. IMS2020 considered the futuristic point of view of competition based on sustainability, thus the possibility of trading sustainable technologies to countries which currently dominate the manufacturing sector.

Within the IMS2020 roadmap, sustainability has a great role, aiming at improving the sustainability of the technologies, the products and production systems as well as the businesses behind them.
According to this vision and this focus, the main areas of research and action identified were:
- Scarce Resources Management
- Technologies for Sustainability
- Sustainable Lifecycle of products and production systems
- Sustainable Product and Production
- Sustainable Businesses
The relevance of these areas, as well as the topics within them, has been defined through a worldwide industrial survey.

Scarce Resource Management

Manufacturing is strictly dependent on continuous flows of materials and energy. Enterprises aims not only at surviving, but also at growing on the market; the population and its consumptions are growing as well as, but that means evidently a further growth of consumption of energy and materials. This situation requires a new way of thinking: see the end of the 'first life' of products not as a problem but as a resource.

Today a lot of reusing technologies have been investigated but there is a strong need of a reference model for material reuse optimization.

Recycling is the second feasible options: waste materials should return in supply chain and can be used as raw materials, source of energy or to replace no renewable natural resources (minerals and fossil fuels).

Topics within the Research Action were:
- Re-use Optimization.
The aim of this research topic was to develop methodologies and tools to improve materials reuse after products' disposal. The research included self -disassembly technologies, de-manufacture methods, technologies for composite materials, IT tools, methods and best practices to be used by large companies as well as SMEs.
- Resource Recovery from Alternative Fuels and Row Materials.

Due to increased utilization of waste materials to substitute either conventional fuels or raw materials in energy intensive industries, the recovery of trace elements contained in such material streams will become a crucial part of future manufacturing processes. Research aimed for technological solutions able to recover such trace elements in an ecological and economical way.

Technologies for sustainability
With the sustainability vision in mind, technologies need to be developed that enable, support and improve the economic, ecological and social performance of product/process/service systems.

Topics within the Research Action were:
- Quality Embedded Manufacturing
In modern factories, smart products and machines (equipped with embedded smart devices) can be wirelessly networked and remotely monitored in a real-time way under intelligent control systems. As a result, we can do real-time data gathering; remote monitoring and analyzing of all manufacturing operations to control the quality of manufacturing, predict exceptional cases of manufacturing systems and taking appropriate actions through decision making. This provides a new environment for enhancing quality management in manufacturing.
- Additive forming processes for manufacturing
Traditional manufacturing processes are inefficient from the sustainability point of view. Additive Forming Technologies till now have been used mainly for rapid prototyping. Recently new developments start allowing metal additive forming, opening the doors to additive manufacturing of products components. The research focused on advancing the state of the art of these technologies, understanding how can be used in manufacturing environments to improve both environmental impact and profitability.
- Sustainable Data Management
Nowadays enterprises fight the problem of inconsistent and redundant data. Although knowing about the negative impacts they are not able to avoid the appearance of these challenging effects. The results are mainly related to three dimensions: user (decision support, process efficiency), product service (quality improvement) and general (transparency).

- Integrative Logistics Tools for Supply Chain Improvement
Local optimizations in the supply chain often lead to inefficiencies at other places. Therefore, tools to cooperate within a supply chain, to harmonize the logistics and improve the overall performance have to be found, implemented, and summarized in a tool box.

Sustainable Lifecycle of products and production systems

Sustainability of manufacturing is more and more affected by lifecycle considerations
(Design, Production, Use, Retirement and EOL of products). Manufacturing must be sustainable not only in terms of sustaining a certain level of environmental parameters, but it must be also sustainable in terms of Performance and Quality of both products (including services) and processes, and, Safety of people (workers and other people affected in one or another way by manufacturing process or facilities and their products) but also of the related facilities and infrastructure. Maintenance of manufacturing facilities is important to sustain (i) the quality of processes and (ii) safety.
Topics within the Research Action were:

- Real-time Life Cycle Assessment
The aim was to develop a methodology and a set of tools to allow a precise esteem of the whole lifecycle impact (LCA) and costs of a product (LCC) to be used real-time by designers during the design process. This tool uses lifecycle data information from previous product and esteems to do a precise evaluation of the full lifecycle impact of a new product during its development as well as its full lifecycle cost.
- Cost Based Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
Cost is the basic criteria for the product related decision making; manufacturers try to reduce the production cost, customers want to get a product in low cost, used products are differently handled depending on its estimated cost. But each participant in the product life cycle does not consider the cost from the global perspective but only from the local perspective. Hence an integrated cost management over the whole product life cycle would be beneficial for the products' ultimate value maximization.
- Maintenance Concept for Sustainability
Longer machine life cycles and higher equipment performance in respect to resource consumption, energy consumption and availability could be achieved through effective and efficient maintenance, making this topic an important issue for sustainability. New maintenance concepts should improve the level of sustainability in manufacturing through innovative and predictive measures. Therefore, new evaluation concepts integrating sustainability related aspects into maintenance management have been designed .
- Predictive maintenance
Traditionally, PLM has been based on integration of a number of centralised ICT tools (CAD, ERP, PDM, ...) predominately operated and used by manufacturers and suppliers, and hence impossible to have meaningful input by product users. With the development of distributed Closed-Loop PLM based on Embedded Information Devices that facilitates users to provide detailed and valuable information about the use stage of product, distributed knowledge with an extended value chain demand including users/operators will be generated and used to support predictive maintenance applications for the optimal operation of an asset through its lifecycle.

Sustainable Product and Production

Sustainable product and production system will contribute towards the modernization of industry by improving the quality of product information and ease of access to information at the design, production, utilization and end of life stages.

Topics within the Research Action were:
- Green Controller for Machining
Machine tools are considered as the 'mothers' of all production systems in the sense that they are the fundamental production systems that substantially contribute to the competiveness and high employment levels of the European manufacturing industry. To maintain and further improve this position the European machining industry needs to be proactive and design and manufacture machine tools that respect higher levels of sustainability. The development of green controller for machining will be an important backbone of this proposed development.
- Sustainability Metrics
The aim was to develop a scorecard for processes and a comparable 'sustainability index' for products. The scorecard and the index have to take in account all sustainability pillars (environment, society, ) all the lifecycle phases, and information about the company and its supply chain.
- Sustainability workshops
Deliver industrial driven workshops have been organized in order to exchange best practices and ideas on sustainability between industries and research.
- Sustainable Packaging
Packaging (primary, secondary and transit) forms an important part of wastes for both industrial and consumer goods. For this reason it is important to reduce its impact developing re-usable, biodegradable, environmental friendly or even edible packaging.
- Optimization of Electronic Sustainability
Electronic products could have a longer working life. Usually they are prematurely trashed because of obsolescence, not failures. Moreover these products' disposal has a high environmental impact because of the contained materials. Therefore, to reduce their impact, it is needed to develop a lifecycle comprehensive methodology to optimize the life usage of the products (reuse) as well as their disposal impact, using advanced identification (RFTags) and recycling techniques.
- Materials re-use optimization
The aim of this research topic is to develop methodologies and tools to improve materials reuse after products' disposal. The research should include self- disassembly technologies, de-manufacture methods, technologies for composite materials, IT tools, methods and best practices to be used by large companies as well as SMEs.
- Sustainable Supply Chain Design
Nowadays more and more companies relocate production sites back to their original location. The reason for the failure of many outsourcing investments is the disregard of facts like skills of the workforce, transportation time and costs as well as ecological issues. Thus the development of a holistic model which is taking all relevant facts into account is necessary to enable sustainable location decisions.
- Management of hazardous substances in manufacturing
Adequate management of hazardous substances is needed to reduce the impact of industry activity on the environment and human health and safety. Research focuses on the development of production methods, ICT solutions and recuperation technologies that reduce use and generation of hazardous substances as well as guarantee a safe management of them.

- EOL management supporting technologies
Remanufacturing is becoming more important as many countries are tightening environmental regulations or legislations in economic activities. Optimisation of remanufacturing processes will lead to higher efficiency of remanufacturing systems that will allow for the cost effective re-use of remanufactured components while satisfying required quality specifications at the same time. This will contribute in a significant manner in the optimisation of resources usage which is one of the main objectives of sustainable manufacturing.

Sustainable Businesses

Nowadays sustainability is a challenging key business imperative that calls for a new paradigm of thinking and acting.

Sustainability is a complex issue to manage due to the holistic nature of sustainability concept that embeds environmental, social and business aspects that are not independent of one other, but instead intertwine in tradeoffs. Enterprises need to manage all these conflicting aspects of sustainability in a integrate manner, focusing not only on environmental or social performances but also on sustainability of business: a shift to sustainability will only occur if it will not be costly and disadvantageous, but sound and attractive from economical point of view. There is a need to reach the so-called triple bottom line objectives: profitable growth, environmental friendliness, social responsibility.

Topics within the Research Action were:
- Sustainable SMEs
SMEs impact is around 70% of the whole manufacturing. The aim of this research is to develop proper methodologies and business models to increase SMEs sustainability, minimizing their inefficiencies and finding a way to make sustainability a value, not a cost.
- Exploiting Disruptive Innovation for sustainability
Manufacturing companies need to change their approach to innovation if they want to face the current turbulent market. The aim of this research is to develop methodologies and tools to manage and run simultaneously incremental and disruptive innovation, to exploit their potential for sustainability.
- Integrated Service Supplier Development
Today suppliers have to provide both physical products as well as complementary services in order to meet the customer demands. Therefore, it is reasonable to build up networks in which producers and service suppliers work together on the configuration of product-service-systems. In order to realize these networks companies need standardized methods and tools for the definition of the relevant interfaces as a common basis for an integrative development process of products and services.
- Product-Service Engineering
Due to differentiation needs, companies face tremendous challenges to develop customer solutions as a combination of products and services. The successful application of integrated product and service engineering as a general framework is needed. A set of methodologies, tools, business models and standards for products and services, their interfaces and the underlying processes need to be developed.
- Alignment of IT and business strategies
This research topic addresses the lack of knowledge regarding the ability to measure the benefits of IT as an indirect department. How to set up controlling and measurement standards to align IT activities to strategic company goals is the core question to be answered.
- Multi-dimensional inventory management
Companies constantly reduce their depth of value creation leading to inherent but inefficient and ineffective increase of stock echelons in the supply chain. New multi-stage models for supply chain configuration defining stock keeping echelons and order penetration points to optimize supply chain inventory levels are undisputed required.
- Lean Management for Service Industries
Whereas the business world is constantly changing from a manufacturing into a service dominated world, service management still suffers from significant drawbacks in approaches for an efficient and effective service production. Lean management has considerable changed manufacturing industries and seems to be a promising approach for service industries too.
- New workplaces for Aging and Disabled Workers
In the aging society also workers in manufacturing companies are affected. Moreover disabled people' integration is starting to be an important issue. Considering these social aspects companies have to renew the work processes. For this reason new approaches have to be developed using new tools (design for all), workplaces, working methodologies or special training.

KAT2 ENERGY EFFICIENT MANUFACTURING RESULTS

Manufacturing is playing a core role when it comes to green house gases (GHG) and final energy consumption.

From the companies' point of view the importance of energy efficient manufacturing has various reasons, for example customers changing their purchasing behavior with regard to 'green' products and services, rising energy prices, or emerging of new environmental regulations. Using the available energy more efficiently is a way to meet ever-rising energy needs and secure energy supplies.

The IMS2020 Key Area 'Energy Efficient Manufacturing' aimed at reducing the scarce resource depletion as well as the carbon footprint by considering innovative methods and technologies.

According to this vision there have been four major areas for research and action.
- Energy Sources for Factories
- Efficient Production Processes
- Energy Utilization in Collaborative Frameworks
- Management and Control of Energy Consumption

Energy Sources for Factories

Rising energy prices, risk of unavailability, but also the environmental awareness of customers makes companies to re-evaluate their energy sourcing strategy. New strategies may include becoming independent from external power supplies on the bigger scale, but also using smaller scale energy potentials to power devices as sensors and controllers. With increased knowledge and data basis about internal manufacturing processes it is possible to control more effectively and thus increase the energy efficiency of the processes. By using energy potentials available in the environment, a 'wireless' energy supply can be realized and sensors and controllers powered remotely, which contributes to the secondary energy savings.

Topics within the Research Action were:
- Energy Autonomous Factory
In order to reduce energy consumption and to guarantee a reliable energy supply, technologies and frameworks have to be developed for production-sites, which enable self-dependent energy generation according to the actual on-site demand and facilitate the use of renewable energy sources.

- Using Energy Harvesting for Powering Electrical Sensors and Devices in Manufacturing Processes
Energy harvesting is a concept to transform surrounding energy (e.g. thermal, kinetic, waves) to electrical energy. By finding potentials and developing solutions for manufacturing, e.g. sensors' and controllers' energy storage devices can become smaller or even dispensable.

Efficient Production Processes

From an energy efficiency point of view, manufacturing processes can be improved in three different layers. The first layer is the technology of the existing manufacturing processes themselves. The second layer is the design of the process chains and the manufacturing systems, respectively. The third layer considers the output streams from the manufacturing processes.

Topics within the Research Action were:
- Energy Efficient Particle Size Reduction
Current grinding processes have very poor energy efficiency, as only few percents of power are used for breaking chemical bonds of materials. New grinding concepts and technologies have to be defined (e.g. pretreatments, flexible grinding systems) and demonstrated.
- Green Manufacturing for Future Vehicles
Taking into account the interdependencies of product design and the manufacturing process, new possibilities of car-manufacturing due to new product architecture of 'green cars' (e.g. hybrid, electrical cars) should be analyzed and new energy efficient production concepts developed.
- Emission Reduction Technologies
Resource and energy intensive industries emit substantial amounts of green house gases and other polluting substances. Secondary emission reduction technologies have to be developed in a coordinated approach across sectors. With this, benefits from implementing similar reduction and capture technologies in different industries can be expected.

Energy Utilization in Collaborative Frameworks

Today, energy is used in single factories for the own manufacturing processes. Dissipating energy in form of heat or by products is in many cases taken as waste output without potential of reusing it. Here, technology advancements have to be fostered in order to make the pretreatment and the reuse both environmentally as well as economically viable.

Topics within the Research Action were:
- Technological Access to Wastes for Enhanced Utilization
Enhanced utilization of alternative fuels and raw materials, derived from waste, replaces natural resources and as such reduces the environmental impact of resource intensive industries. Technological advances in pre-treatment and upgrade options are required. Adaptation of the main existing processes needs to be demonstrated in a cross-industry approach.
- Intelligent Utilization of Waste Heat
Factories in process industries are point sources of low and medium temperature waste heat, which remain widely unused representing environmental and economic opportunities. Expected outcomes are a methodology for cross-plant analysis of waste heat recovery potentials, recovery technologies and demonstrated cooperation between industries/plants for optimized utilization of heat at various temperature levels including low temperature waste heat.
- Framework for Collaboration in the Alternative Fuel and Raw Material Market
Resource intensive industries significantly contribute to green house gas emissions making it an important sector for mitigation actions. Here, waste/by-products can be used to replace raw material and fossil fuels in industrial processes. Methodologies and strategies for cross-industry and cross-sector collaboration have to be developed in order to enable increased utilization of waste.

Management and Control of Energy Consumption

The design of former manufacturing systems has been driven by the market, focusing on quality, fast delivery and low costs. In order to develop new Energy Management Systems, the sensors and control devices require attention as well as the key performance indicators, the techno-human interfaces and new concepts of setting up a manufacturing system. With this, energy efficiency can become an integral part of the manufacturing systems and also be represented in the Information and Communication Technology Systems.

Topics within the Research Action were:
- Energy-Aware Manufacturing Processes - Measurement and Control
An effective energy control system has to be developed, using the information of sensors and in-process measurement and a suitable energy efficiency performance measuring system. This control system focuses on concepts, which facilitate the evaluation, control and improvement of energy efficiency in manufacturing processes.
- Integrating Energy Efficiency in Production Information Systems
A novel framework that manages and optimizes energy efficiency with respect to production planning and control needs to be developed and implemented in enterprise control and information systems, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), and Distributed Control Systems (DCS).
- Product Tags for Holistic Value Chain improvements
Product related information about the in and outputs of manufacturing processes make the value chain transparent for its stakeholders. The transparency allows process improvements to be coordinated in order to increase the overall value chain performance (in terms of e.g. efficiency, costs, delivery time).

KAT3 KEY TECHNOLOGIES FOR MANUFACTURING RESULTS

In the IMS area of Key technologies, IMS2020 KAT3, composed by highly qualified members from all over the world and the most relevant ETPs, analysed enabling technologies that will yield a high impact on the next generation of manufacturing, like model-based enterprise, nanotechnology, smart material, robotics, etc. Thanks to its global partnership, IMS2020 has been able to take easily in account the effects of globalization on production, analysing new possibilities offered by new technologies. As above, KAT3 investigated a relevant IMS area from a global point of view.

The IMS2020 KAT3 aimed at developing the technologies for allowing system builders to produce value-adding systems at minimized costs and environmental impacts and for allowing the users of said systems to produce value-adding customized products with increasingly shorter delivery times and of high technological content. In particular, four areas have been proposed for that research:
- Flexible Manufacturing Systems
- Cost-Saving Manufacturing Systems
- Energy-Saving Manufacturing Systems
- Key Technologies embedded in manufactured products

Flexible Manufacturing Systems

In the sustainability perspective, manufacturing industries need to be able to adapt quickly to market challenges and to take advantage from market changes. Flexible production systems may mitigate the effect of demand uncertainties. Compared to dedicated systems, flexible systems require new investment costs. Companies need new knowledge for the creation of new products and processes and the improvement of existing products and processes of new global manufacturing systems.

Topics within the Research Action were:
- Modular Assembly /Disassembly Production Systems
In manufacturing systems, assembly and disassembly of machines and systems are labour-intensive processes that are traditionally linked to customization aspects and variations of the produced products. To respond to the needs of complex products and to change the operations in-situ between automation and human work, depending on the changing volume, the new generation of adaptive production systems, looking to the entire product and process life cycles.
- Control for Adaptability
In manufacturing process it is essential to integrate process models in the control system that allows optimal performance under different conditions. New control systems could overcome the limits of traditional systems and be able to react in time to fluctuations during the process, to changes of process parameters and disturbance variables.
- Mutable Production Systems
Short delivery times and the increasing complexity and variety of manufactured products are demanding more than highly flexible production systems. Furthermore production systems need to be changeable enabling the reconfiguration to adapt to changed conditions in a fast an efficient way.
- Model Based Engineering and Sustainability
The engineering of customised manufacturing systems involves an integrated model-based approach that covers products+services, processes and business models in an integrated way.
- Cooperative and Mobile Manufacturing Systems
An innovative way for conceiving flexible production plants lies in reconceiving those production plants as dynamic communities of mobile robots capable of cooperating among them and with human workers.
- Mechanical MicroMachining Enhancement
The miniaturization of machine components is unanimously a key issue for the future technological development. However, numerous technological problems prevent the adoption of micro-manufacturing technologies at the industrial level. New concepts are also needed for fixturing and handling systems, modular and multifunctional machine tools, process monitoring and control through accurate sensors and methods of data analysis.
- Forthcoming "Brown Fields" Re-Engineering
The scope of this research is the development of a new business model to increase the effectiveness of brown field production. Therefore it is essential to develop supporting tools and methodologies such as, for example, 'plug and interoperate' devices, interfaces for interoperability, fast simulations and reprogramming tools, methods to improve the plant control, assembly and disassembly aspects.
- Extracting Higher Potential from Regional Cluster Based on Professional Virtual Collaboration Platforms
For the manufacturing industry it is imperative to continue to exploit innovative business strategies long time in advanced. One essential strategy of the future is to participate in dynamic business networks. Two major objectives of this strategy are to bring the core capabilities into a flexible network and to govern through stakeholders.
- Ontology Based Engineering Asset Management
The main goal of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the management of all the business processes distributed along the product's lifecycle phases. A major requirement for efficient PLM is the traceability of the product which is the acquirement of information along the product's lifecycle about the product.

Cost-Saving Manufacturing Systems

Present manufacturing systems are characterized by sophisticated processes. To be competitive, minimisation of costs is a new approach that makes possible to reduce systems' downtime and maximising efficiency. The manufacturing sector needs a multi-disciplinary approach for conceiving new concepts for manufacturing systems that fulfil users' needs while reducing total life-cycle costs. More precisely, both physical and organizational processes must be able to achieve new performances to quickly respond to technical and cost constraints due to environmental, economic and societal issues.

Topics within the Research Action were:
- Lower Labour and Energy Cost Performance
Cost linked to sustainability is the main driver of this research topic. Cost issues are fundamental in the manufacturing industry and when addressing them, two main aspects come in front: the labour cost and the energy cost, which are linked to environmental sustainability and to aspects of human safety at work. This research topic addresses both issues in a combined way: the efficiency,
effectiveness and safety of work force (people) involved in manufacturing activities, and the optimised utilisation of energy streams with a low energy consumption level.
- Interoperable Products and Production data exchange
Companies can be part of several production networks at the same time thus making the planning, management and optimization of these networks a very complex task. This requests collaborative planning, management and optimization of production and logistic resources, including the production planning and capacity management in non-hierarchical company networks. These processes have to be standardized across industries in order to come up with the necessary speed and flexibility in the network integration.
- High Resolution Total Supply Chain
To keep production units in high-wage countries, companies have to concentrate on manufacturing complex and individualized products. Being able to adapt processes according to supply chain requirements is a key success factor. Decentralized self -optimizing control mechanisms, based on a new level of information transparency and synchronized target systems are indispensible. Therefore a multistage control loop system of intelligent objects based on cybernetic models has to be developed.
- Build-to-Order - New Production Planning and Control Models for Complex Individualized Products
The production of complex products requires the involvement of different partners providing services, materials or manufacturing activities. New production planning and control approaches must be developed to coordinate the production activities and to assure robust production performance against uncertain events and against the propagation of production plan disruptions within the network enterprise.
- High Performance (High Precision, High Speed, Zero Defect)
To increase efficiency of manufacturing system, this topic covers productivity gains and cost saving to face market changes and eco- society sustainability issues. The aim of this topic is to increase the capability of manufacturing systems to maintain highest standards in the event of frequently changing operating and product-mix conditions. To provide more efficient and productive outputs,
technologies for high volume, high speed and new capabilities of processes are needed.
- Model-based Manufacturing
Model-based manufacturing refers to the development of virtual manufacturing environments that will allow explicitly integrating knowledge in the manufacturing chain. Expected outcomes are tools for manufacturing environment simulation and information exchange with other production stages.
- Knowledge Generation Systems
Although a lot of data is being collected by various systems, there is no efficient and productive method to process the data. The development of Systems capable of generating knowledge is required. These systems will be concept-based and will combine concepts with data to generate new knowledge.

- High Accuracy Modelling
Companies face the problem that current planning approaches aren't able to incorporate all relevant influence factors leading to inefficient and ineffective production in worldwide networks. There is a need for development of methodologies and new ways of visualization based on ICT. This would improve planning and forecasting of processes within complex company networks involving multiple stakeholders.
- Semantic Business Processes
The intensive global competition motivates an increasing number of companies to cooperate throughout the entire value chain. Models, tools and standards for intra-organizational business workflows and process execution have to be developed in order to guarantee high-quality integration of processes within cooperation.
- Dealing with unpredictability
Innovation processes are crucial in developing products and processes in manufacturing companies. Traditional methods are insufficient to cope with the risk embedded in such projects and radically new methods are needed taking both contextual and strategic risk into account.

Energy-Saving Manufacturing Systems

Taking into account the high environmental impact associated to current manufacturing systems and related processes along their whole life-cycle, both builders and users of manufacturing systems demand innovative solutions (manufacturing systems + services + processes) with reduced consumption of energy and material resources.

Topics within the Research Action were:

- Efficient Use of Raw Materials
In manufacturing, using raw materials efficiently directly saves costs and energy in transformation, transportation, and disposal and, with this, reduces Green House Gas Emissions. By focusing on 'zero-waste' and 'zero-defect' technology developments, the amount of energy and resources required in manufacturing can be reduced as it is linked to the amount of material processed in the whole supply chain.
- Advanced Automation for Demanding Process Conditions
Advanced automation and control systems for process industries with fluctuating input streams (such as raw materials, fuels, etc.) need to be developed. Besides of a constant product quality, energy consumption and production costs can be reduced by achieving higher throughputs and increased energy efficiency of the process.

Key Technologies embedded in manufactured products

The manufacturing industry needs to pass from providing technologically advanced products to providing total solutions, i.e. products + services + processes, as a means for increasing the value that customers perceive when using said technological products.

Topics within the Research Action were:

- Business concept B2C-communities
The increasing competitive pressure on global markets constrains companies to reduce their costs and to encourage customer retention. By integrating customers into the development process of new products and services, companies are able to save money and to meet end customers' requirements. Therefore methods, tools and standards are needed that help companies to build up their individual B2Ccommunities.
- Knowledge Embedded Products
More intelligent products with embedded knowledge, use of smart materials, sensors, RFID etc will generate new business opportunities and competitiveness for the manufacturing industry and more value for the customers. Through case studies of best practice and state-of-the art within knowledge embedded products, the manufacturing industry will obtain new innovative ideas on how to provide more value for their customers. For the manufacturing industry this will not only represent new markets but also more value and sales to existing customers.

KAT4 STANDARDS RESULTS

The fourth IMS Key Area dealed with Standards (KAT4). As known, currently a number of standards in certain areas of the manufacturing sector are available (e.g. ISO10303-STEP, ISO-15531-Mandate, MIMOSA, ISA-95, etc.). However, there is a lack of standardization in many areas limiting the development and the introduction of improvements. Standardisation is critical to the successful uptake of efficient interoperable solutions in the modern globalised enterprises.
Some of the most relevant sub-areas investigated by KAT4 were the following:
- Networked enterprises;
- Manufacturing production processes;
- Operations management;
- Semantic and ontology-based interoperability;
- Service oriented architecture for enterprise interoperability;
- Model-based enterprise standards;

KAT5 EDUCATION AND COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT RESULTS

Finally IMS2020, especially through KAT5, promoted Education in IMS, informing students, SMEs and enterprises of the new possibilities coming from IMS innovations. It also promoted the understanding and the diffusion of new learning tools such as eLearning, Technology Enhanced Learning, Serious Games and 3D tools. Furthermore IMS2020 put in place the IMS Summer School, open to international and interregional attendees, taking care of the diverse IMS Key Areas. IMS2020 created also the best environment to allow and encourage doctoral students exchange and knowledge sharing.

Some of most relevant sub-areas that have been investigated are the following:
- E-learning methods and technologies;
- Serious-games for IMS education;
- IMS knowledge intensive training;
- IMS international curricula;
- Education for sustainable manufacturing and learning factory;

Since its global interest, this education area benefitted from international and interregional collaborations.

The three research topics developed of highest industrial relevance were:

- RT 5.01 Teaching factories
- RT 5.02 Cross sectoral education
- RT 5.03 Communities of practice

The three topics of middle industrial relevance were:
- RT 5.04 From tacit to explicit knowledge
- RT 5.06 Benchmarking
- RT 5.08 Personalized ubiquitous learning

The three topics having less industrial relevance were:
- RT 5.05 Innovation agents
- RT 5.09 Accelerated learning
- RT 5.07 Serious games

Human resource development is an area of increasing interest for policy action. The requested improved linking between education and industry skills induces a renewed focus on training of vocational and technical personnel. Particularly relevant is the skill development related to hard competences in manufacturing processes.

A general high impact of training activities has been highlighted. Particularly, training activities provide support in following ways:
- supply of preliminary knowledge necessary to supplement research activities within product chains;
- reinforcement in fallout and spreading of research results;
- adequate standardization and transfer of new knowledge resulting from research activities.

Major problems are referred to development of standard sets of new competences related to complex technological aims. As a matter of fact a relevant number of competences are application driven, so their complexities increase with the complexity of related applications.

New knowledge transfer mechanisms such as teaching factories and serious games are promising future opportunities. A general broadening of their usage should be deepened with reference to technological and knowledge areas. Traditional training mechanisms oriented to industrial implementation of competences or to the general providing of scientific skills today still represent the bulk of knowledge transfer. Coordination of extensive training actions involving different stakeholders has to be deepened in terms of complementarities and interfaces between training suppliers and industrial users.

Potential Impact:

IMS2020 addressed the development of the European perspective in international manufacturing. The principal impact of IMS2020 was for the benefit and improvement of European competitiveness and leadership for worldwide cutting edge research and innovation activities for manufacturing by providing a solid vision and building cooperation in the international research community.

This main impact of IMS2020 can be seen as the result of several different more specific impacts that could be considered to arise from:
- Activities that demonstrated and increased global visibility for the competence of European factory assets suppliers through:
- the building of a community of experts and stakeholders capable of and committed to leveraging the paradigm shift towards energy efficient manufacturing systems, taking into account the European competencies and capabilities. Current framework programmes within the EU, e.g. the European Technology Platforms, and upcoming initiatives, e.g. the planned establishment of the IMS Manufacturing Technology Platforms, that brought together various industries to the five identified topics have been integrated into the IMS2020 community.
- execution of a substantial proactive dissemination programme to relevant standards and consortia groups as well as stakeholder groups;
- provision of an evaluated Roadmap of the steps towards a full-scale deployment of International manufacturing in Europe;
- provision of the basis for true interregional collaboration, in order to establish a global picture and common understanding on competencies and capabilities in sustainable manufacturing technologies.
- Activities that provided societal benefits by leading to global targets in industrial security and safety, through KAT1 related activities:
- interest in technology solutions for manufacturing processes and manufactured products which are efficient with respect to resource use and lead to minimal waste;
- ergonomics, industrial disaster prevention and mitigation and safety of nanomaterials and related manufacturing.
- Activities that provided common curriculae for the education of current and future manufacturing workforce that include sustainability and energy efficiency aspects, and prepared for the identified future European manufacturing environment. The aim was to provide the needed know-how for European factory asset suppliers to sustain and/or improve their competitiveness on the global market.
- Activities that attained to environmental objectives as set out in the European Environmental Technologies Action Plan (ETAP), through KAT2 related activities:
- interest in solutions to improve efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint in energy utilisation for manufacturing and operational processes through, e.g. environmental performance targets setting

Starting with the Mapping of state-of-the-art for the definition of the IMS related initiatives and existing initiatives, the regions of IMS benefitted greatly as the results of such mapping can be used for their own individual research activities and ultimately the IMS whole community from the outcome to define the vision, which resulted as an essential input for the IMS2020 roadmap development. The development of this visionary roadmap about the five IMS topics, guaranteed the unification of future research efforts and effectiveness of strategies taken by the European IMS research community to define a research program for supporting future manufacturing systems that ensures European industry maintaining immediate and long-term competitiveness. The development of this project deliverables surely supported the core of the IMS2020 project, which is the building and upholding the IMS international community. Activities such as forums, workshops, summer school and the IMS Innovation in Manufacturing Award provided the means for effective networking of experts, researchers, employers, institutions and industry associated with the subject of sustainable manufacturing.

The nature of the project was the interaction and union of the IMS regions in the ambit of the five IMS Key Areas. In order to achieve such international interface and unanimity among regions regarding the actual and future research road, it was a must to define a common vision among regions that are in compliance with the respective local or national approaches being taken (or being planned to take) by each individual IMS region. In this way, IMS2020 allowed for the creation of a common ground for the potential advances developed by the European research community, allowing more powerful and cooperative efforts that merge into effective and useful future outcomes. IMS2020 went well along with the core objective of concurrent projects under the Theme 4 NMP that haa effectively contributed, either on their own or by enabling further development, to the transformation of European industry from a resource-intensive to a knowledge-intensive Industry. Thus, providing the vision that brings researchers to the same page that work towards the same objective imposed by the global environmental challenges such as climate change and resources scarcity. Undoubtedly, must be worked in a global setting even though the approaches in the field are mostly holistic.

Strategic impact
A coordinated approach toward the paradigm shift from conventional production environments towards global international manufacturing networks is expected to significantly impact industrial competitiveness and societal mechanisms throughout Europe. Global production systems will emerge over the next 10-20 years, it is only a question of how and in what way they are integrated with each other. Indeed, if Europe does not understand the rules of the global manufacturing game there is the danger of de-industrialising. The IMS2020 project brought together a critical mass of experts to understand these rules and provide those recommendations necessary for sustaining manufacturing.

Competitiveness issues
The lack of organizational ability and knowledge on how to effectively react on the changing global production environment and how to assess its effects on European industry may prove detrimental to the Union's economy. Thus, IMS2020 aimed to alleviate that situation by creating a strong foundation of competence and knowledge to act as a springboard for the improvement of European competitiveness through the realisation of the IMS2020 research program. This research program has been based on the input of five high-quality KATs. The direct impact has been identified at different levels concerning improvement potential for growth, employment, and competitiveness.

Scientific Impact
The IMS2020 project addressed challenging scientific research topics regarding future manufacturing systems. The KATs and the huge number of experts who have been joined together in the IMS2020 project ensure the holistic and integrated view on manufacturing systems.

Significant scientific impacts have been achieved from work proceeding from the IMS2020 Community. On the one hand, Advisory Committee and the Key Area Teams regularly met and work via the project portal in order to push ahead the theoretical scientific discussion of their respective topics. On the other hand, the internal and external workshops contributed further to impact in the scientific area, widening the area of impact to beyond the direct participants of the IMS2020. This has been reinforced by the regular submission of contributions to select conferences and journals.

In the long term, the development of the Research Programme will guarantee the generation of Scientific Impact by IMS2020 for a timeframe, which extends well beyond the project duration. The IMS2020 consortium as well as the extended large community is expected to be instrumental in the execution of the Research Programme, on the basis of the solid Community infrastructure.

By coordinating European research effort effectively through the instruments described in the project, IMS2020 established and maintained an interdisciplinary critical mass of scientific and technical competence. This fostered the generation of scientific results of a higher quality in less time than without the instruments installed by the project.

Societal Impacts
It is always difficult to describe and justify societal impacts of a small research project. However, strategies to avoid negative and reinforce positive societal impacts will play a significant role in the development of IMS2020. The following summarises societal impacts currently expected by the consortium.

The societal impacts that affected and will affect directly European manufacturing industry were mainly related to safety and security improvement: the workforce within the manufacturing companies, the customers, and the society itself will profit from more reliable production processes, lowering the risk of hazardous incidents:
- By integrating industrial safety and security aspects into the definition of the Roadmaps for the development of future sustainable manufacturing systems.
- By considering the broader safety platforms on occupational injury prevention, workplace ergonomic considerations, and maintenance that keep the work environment safe for workers.
- By assessing industrial safety and reliability in terms of materials, bearing in mind hazardous ones.

Such societal improvements related to safety and security, together with the consequent improvement in competitiveness and will have several subsequent societal positive impacts:
- Improved European competitiveness will lead to improved living standards for all citizens
- Living standards will improve by intelligent products making expert decisions with regards to themselves and their environment
- Overall working conditions in production will be improved by the ability of global manufacturing systems to take decisions autonomously
Finally IMS2020 considered the futuristic point of view of competition based on sustainability, thus the possibility of trading sustainable technologies to countries which currently dominate the manufacturing sector, having therefore a beneficial societal impact on them.

Environmental Impacts
IMS2020 considered with particular attention also the positive impacts that an Intelligent Manufacturing System have on Environmental issues, this also in relation to the environmental objectives set out in the European Environmental Technologies Action Plan (ETAP).

Among the others, IMS2020 answered more directly to the following ETAP's objectives:
- 'Increase and Focus Research, Demonstration and Dissemination', raising interest in solutions for improving efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint in energy utilisation for manufacturing and operational processes.
- 'Technology Platforms', promoting the long-term vision to develop and support Energy efficient manufacturing to guarantee the sustainability of the industry sector and ultimately continue to satisfy human needs.
- 'Performance Targets', looking at long-term and visionary as well as viable and realistic key performance indicators that consider manufacturing and its environmental impact as a whole.

Dissemination activities
The project itself was disseminated in various ways. Materials to be spread at conferences and trade fairs were produced including a short flyer, a results brochure, a roll up, and specially designed mint boxes and USB sticks. Furthermore, several publications of the project were registered. A short flyer was produced, giving an overview on the project aims. The general purpose of the project in combination with its members was described to promote the Roadmapping Support Group and to attract new members. The rollup is supposed to be an eyecatcher on diverse large events. Like the short flyer, the rollup aims at attracting potential members to the roadmapping support group. Therefore, it also gives only short information about the project's contents, but rather focuses on the call for participation. The IMS 2020 Brochure as a 12-pager was the first summary of the project results in 2009. It contained a short overview on the project, an explanation of the project vision, a description of the project's methodology and a summary of the first three KATs' results. The brochure is supposed as more in-depth information towards the European Commission and the worldwide research community, to get prepared for upcoming topics and tenders. Nevertheless, also manufacturers can get an insight in the prospective challenges of their business.

The brochure was extended up to KAT 5 in 2010. Of course, the brochure contains the call for participation in the RSG. The mint box contains 20 mints and carries the Title 'IMS 2020 Fresh ideas for manufacturing'. It is supposed to attract unknowing manufacturers or researchers to the topic of IMS 2020 and to spread the logo across the target group. The addressees are people who do not know yet that the topics of IMS 2020 could become interesting for their future work. The box is designed to be useful also after all mints are consumed. Consequently it is a small but long-lasting reminder of the project itself. Like the mint boxes, the USB-sticks are supposed to interest a group of potential project participants, who are not very well informed about the project yet. The USB-sticks were initially loaded with IMS 2020 materials, but of course they have a high value of reutilisation. Due to its high value, the USB-stick should only be handed over to disseminators or to visitors with a high potential interest in project participation.

The website http://www.ims2020.net serves all target groups. Especially the groups, who should gain awareness and an understanding of the project, can receive their information at this web-presentation. But of course, the IMS2020 websites also offer deeper information for the other target groups. Further all publications of the project are published on the website (if limited by copyrights they were at least announced).
During the project runtime, several 'internal' meetings were held, most of them project discussions. Though these meetings are not really a contribution to dissemination, they foster a deeper understanding of the employees in the respective meeting place.

Many events for the IMS Community and also external have been organized and supported (IMS Conference, IMS Summer School, World Manufacturing Forum).

Furthermore, articles, conference contributions and news have been reported in D5.1 a-b "Project Promotion report".

Exploitation of results
The conversion of research results into industrial innovation is the ultimate goal of any research activity. Thus the project acted as a catalyst for improving the co-operation of SMEs with both industry and academia. The created additional visibility and impact for running projects in creating and supporting relevant PR so as to facilitate the dissemination, transfer, and exploitation of past and present programme results. An important exploitation result was the development of a stronger and more coordinate IMS action between different regions, creating synergies. The other important exploitable result of the project is Roadmaps. Roadmaps can be exploited in different ways. Roadmaps can be used as enabling starting point for future NMP and ICT work programmes, and therefore they represent schemes for the new IMS collaboration research schemes. Moreover, they could be used to support new actions and schemes focused on IMS linkage to SMEs.

List of Websites:

http://www.ims-2020.eu

Final Report Summary - IMS2020 (IMS2020: Supporting global research for IMS 2020 Vision)

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