Digital Platform for Circular Economy in Cross-sectorial Sustainable Value Networks

Project Information

DigiPrime

Grant agreement ID: 873111

DOI

10.3030/873111

Project closed

EC signature date 5 December 2019

Start date 1 January 2020

End date 31 December 2023

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 19 257 130,00

EU contribution

€ 15 963 173,50

Coordinated by

POLITECNICO DI MILANO
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - DigiPrime (Digital Platform for Circular Economy in Cross-sectorial Sustainable Value Networks)

Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2023-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Problem being addressed: Currently product data and knowledge is not exchanged among value-chain stakeholders and sectors leading to unlocked cross-sectorial circular economy opportunities. Moreover, there is poor acceptability of products embedding re-usable materials by end-customers. DigiPrime develops a new concept of Circular Economy digital platform overcoming current information asymmetry among value-chain stakeholders, in order to unlock new circular business models based on the data-enhanced recovery and re-use of functions and materials from high value-added post-use products with a cross-sectorial approach. The platform will integrate value-chain integration horizontal services and vertical operational service to solve current traceability and information asymmetry issues. The key target pilot application will be dedicated to high value components of electric and hybrid vehicles, including Li-Ion batteries, electronics, composite and textile. The circular solutions for e-mobility enhanced by digital tools will bring impacts in terms of reduction of emission and landfilled material in the use and post-use phases. Moreover, capability to re-use materials and component functions from post-use e-mobility parts with cross-sectorial approaches will be provided, enabling to reduce energy consumption in the production of virgin materials and components.

Objective 1. To solve current information asymmetry among value-chain stakeholders by providing secure access to material, component and product information, thus unlocking cross-sectorial circular value-chains.
Objective 2. To increase circular business profitability, by integrating within the platform specific service applications at value-chain level and operational level, exploiting the data sharing mechanisms of the platform.
Objective 3. To establish four new cross-sectorial circular European value-chains for the remanufacturing and re-use of high added-value components.
Objective 4. To demonstrate at European scale the economic, social and environmental sustainability of new circular business models and services enabled by the platform.
Objective 5. To create the conditions for a wide European adoption of the digital platform. This objective will be achieved by planning and executing two programmes (Ambassador and Seed), supported by specific and targeted dissemination activities, addressing the large scale recruiting of early adopters and a cascade funding approach opening calls for specific experiments targeting as the following.
Objective 6. To support standardization and legislation, to remove potential boundaries and limitations to the development of sustainable circular value-chains in Europe and enable scale-up and replication of the DigiPrime.
Objective 7. To leverage on existing platforms and components, still ensuring scalability, reusability and interoperability.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Progresses in Objective 1 have been achieved with respect to the development of the horizontal value-chain integration services of the DigiPrime platform in WP3. The services have been designed and implemented, leading to digital tools customized for different user needs at different Circular Economy maturity levels.
Progresses in Objective 2 have been achieved. In order to make the use of the DigiPrime platform attractive from an economic and business perspective, the user functional and non-functional requirements have been defined with a rigorous and replicable approach. Moreover, use-scenarios have been formalized. Based on these inputs, WP7 is in progress, establishing the business models for the platform and service developers as well as for the industrial users at different level of the circular value-chain.
Progresses in Objective 3 have been achieved. The validation of the services in the technical value-chains (pilots) in the Li-Ion batteries, electronics, composite and textile pilots of the DigiPrime project have been carried out and is in progress.
Progresses towards Objective 4 have been achieved concerning the development of a service for LCA /LCC methods application to the DigiPrime pilots as well as concerning the definition of service integration towards the platform development, prioritizing the integration path within the MVP (DigiPrime Minimum Viable Platform) development process, through a continuous application of the iterative lean design principle.
Progresses in Objective 5 have been achieved. Actions have been implemented through targeted dissemination activities in large scale events, in synergy with other EU level activities, such as the DMP (Digital Manufacturing Platform) cluster, the CF2 (Connected Factories) CSA, the IDSA initiative, the Vanguard Initiative and the Ellen Mac Arthur Foundation. Moreover, links with new strategic projects and actions have been established, such as the Digital Product Passport CSA "CircPass". Moreover, the Ambassador and Seed program has contributed to attract interest from stakeholders on the DigiPrime Open Calls. The first Open Call for IT service developers has been successfully closed and evaluation is in progress.
Progresses towards Objective 6 have been achieved through specific actions performed in synergy with European level actions in specific DigiPrime pilots, for example pilot 1 on batteries. DigiPrime has submitted recently the “DigiPrime Position Paper for the Consultation on Battery Regulation”.
Progresses towards Objective 7 have been achieved. In particular, leveraging on the previous developments in other H2020 projects, both in the context of Circular value-chains and in the context of Digital Platforms for manufacturing, the architecture of the DigiPrime platform has been designed and the platform implemented, enhancing the concept of federation already introduced in the proposal preparation phase.The outcomes of these activities will be included in a high-visibility open access book that will be published before the end of the project to increase the footprint of the project results at scientific and industrial level.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The ambitious DigiPrime objectives will be reached starting from the development of an innovative digital platform, which constitutes the backbone of the entire project. The main features of the DigiPrime platform are:
- A Multi-node federation structure, replicable on different existing and new sectorial platform instances, which will support the future systematic creation of cross-sectorial circular value-chains.
- A Semantic data infrastructure, based on ontological repositories and semantic search, able to manage and standardize the Babel of information coming from heterogeneous nodes.
- A Data Policy Framework to ensure privacy, security, authentication and authorization policies to any information shared among registered users.

Potential Impact: It has been shown, through a preliminary analysis of a sub-set of new business models enabled by DigiPrime platform within the pilots, that DigiPrime would potentially bring the following impact results:
• Economic: a total increase in value added by 2025 of 0,425B€.
• Social: a total increase in employment triggered by DigiPrime of 10154 jobs.
• Environmental: total savings of emissions by 2025 of 13092 KTons CO2, energy savings of 144476 TJ, considering both the production and use phase. Total savings of material that, without DigiPrime, would go to landfill of 48.77 kTons/year by 2025.

DigiPrime Consortium