GMI is in Europe the leading SME in the composite repair solutions sector, having since 25 years investigated, analyzed, studied and developed all the methodologies and associated equipment for aircraft composite maintenance and repair. To ensure excellence, during the last 15 years GMI has also invested very significant effort and resources in order to participate in several EU co-funded R&D Projects, focusing on the development of very innovative composite repair solutions. As a re-sult, today GMI possesses in its portfolio the innovations deriving from more than 15 R&D projects, focusing in composite repair. In consequence, the company is presently backed by a high value technological asset and a long established reputation. GMI objectives are thus to benefit from these two converging factors, in order to expand GMI position in the aeronautical market and closely related industrial sectors, i.e. to grow through innovation.
GMI intends to exploit the business opportunity by developing four (4) high-technology products tailored to the rapidly growing needs for composite repair equipment solutions of the aeronautical industry, as follows:
a. ADVANCED: Heating system for very large (>2m2) composite parts (e.g. A380 reverser).
b. CONDUCTOR: Heating blankets for resin curing that fit a contoured surface; easy cutting with scissors of a rolled developed innovative material.
c. OLGA: Innovative system for in-situ positive pressure application up to +2bars for repair of thick primary composite structures, such as Airbus 350 / Boeing 787 fuselage.
d. MAGNASENSE: Bonded composite repair patches with embedded magnetostrictive sensors, enabling subsequent SHM of critical composite aircraft structures, addressing current and future repair challenges.
According to the results of COLOMBUS-1, as presented in this Deliverable, it turns out that, at this phase, only three (3) out of the four (4) proposed products (namely ADVANCED, CONDUCTOR and OLGA) must be retained and put to the market, considering the effort required for the remain-ing demonstration activities, the expected market share and the Return On Investment period. For those three (3) products high potential in terms of GMI competitiveness and growth has been demonstrated within COLOMBUS-1 and a clear, measurable and realistic business plan has been developed. As a result, it has been decided that a follow up project, namely COLOMBUS-2, will be prepared and submitted to EU. COLOMBUS-2 will include all the required innovation and support activities that need to be performed for the materialization of GMI plan: demonstration, testing, pro-totyping, piloting, scaling-up, miniaturization, design, market replication etc. These activities will foster the development of the three (3) proposed breakthrough products, while enabling increase of their Technology Readiness Level (TRL) and industrial readiness for market introduction.
