Project description
Building Europe’s furniture business
Furniture manufacturing is big business that accounts for more than 25 % of world furniture consumption. It is also going through a big transformation – from a Do It Yourself (DIY) to a Do It Together (DIT) approach. The EU-funded INEDIT project will create an ecosystem to transform the DIY approach within FabLabs into a professional DIT approach. It will capitalise on the knowledge, creativity and ideas of design and engineering conceptualised by interdisciplinary stakeholders and sometimes even new actors. To demonstrate the potential innovation around social manufacturing within the circular economy, the project will test it in four cross use cases: sustainable wood panels manufacturing and 3D-printing of wood, 3D printing of recycled plastic and ‘smartification’.
Objective
"INEDIT creates an open innovation European DIT ecosystem for sustainable furniture co-creation. It channels the creativity of consumers, shapes it through designers’ professional skills, and makes it viable by leveraging on the expertise of production specialists in order to deliver sustainable, smart and personalized new products in a shorter time to market. INEDIT intends to demonstrate the capacity to turn the well-known ‘Do It Yourself’ (DIY) approach applied by individuals within FabLabs into a professional approach named ‘Do It Together’ (DIT). The DIT approach will be applied by customers and professional producers, especially SMEs, for conveying higher customer satisfaction through customer-driven production. DIT is a novel approach capitalizing on the knowledge, creativity and ideas of design and engineering conceptualized by interdisciplinary stakeholders and sometimes even new actors. It is powered by existing European innovation ecosystems shaping new products across EU countries. INEDIT demonstrates the approach through four cross use cases with high societal impact: sustainable wood panels manufacturing and 3D-printing of wood, 3D printing of recycled plastic and ""smartification"". Sustainability and consideration of individual preferences, especially of women and men, will be our guiding thread. INEDIT addresses societal challenges such as contribution to reduce the amount of produced CO2 in focusing on European-wide production, creation and maintenance of EU-wide job opportunities. This will lead to new business opportunities supported by business model innovation. Moreover, these innovative networked local manufacturing competences and production facilities across the EU will solve ethical concerns within the manufacturing network. INEDIT intends to demonstrate, through its twin - digital and physical - platform, the potential innovation around social manufacturing within the circular economy in designing globally while producing locally."
Fields of science
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementbusiness models
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringmanufacturing engineeringadditive manufacturing
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicssustainable economy
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesforestry
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
75013 Paris
France