VRL-KCIP

Virtual Research Lab for a Knowledge Community in Production

Project coordination CTIT: Prof. dr. Fred J.A.M. van Houten

Faculty of Engineering Technology

Tel.: +31 53 489 2549

Project website: VRL-KCiP

Project Summary

European production systems are subject to a permanent change since 20 years because they have to adapt to 2 major factors:

·	Globalisation of the economy

·	Need for industrial innovation

Concerning the first factor, more than 85% of the parts constituting a computer is of origin Asian, of which quasi totality of the keyboards. Actually, the candidate countries have tended to specialise in low-cost production – a move reflected in limited transfers of production from the current Member States to the candidate countries, which made it possible to retain in Europe activities that might otherwise have been re-located outside Europe. In any case, the traditional manufacturing processes are now outside actual European countries and the knowledge of the associated technologies will be lost in a next future if nothing is done.

Relative with the second factor, the innovation of products is mainly the fact of the technology transfer, by using non usual materials or the non usual manufacturing processes to obtain the parts which constitute the product. In innovation using of new processes, the large companies must seek co-partners, by using the competences of the latter in specific manufacturing processes to integrate these competences during the design process. It was the case by example in France when a car manufacturer wanted to introduce the mono-space. The quantities of the launching did not allow the use of traditional body made in steel and it was necessary that it finds specialists in composite manufacture. Here, innovation is the result of integration of new partners in the co-design chain.

In order to keep in Europe the production competences, it is urgent that the divers specialists are associated in a network allowing them to share without retained the competences and the knowledge which they still hold, and that they have the means of integrating these competences in new systems of a design. The creation of the VRL-KCiP NoE is an answer to this problem, putting together the specialists of research in production processes in order to share their knowledge in a common structure.

The delocalisation of the manufacturing phase must be accompanied by a change of organization, making it possible to remain the master of the parameters: cost, delay, quality, service customer, recycling, either by integrating the modelling and the simulation of the manufacturing processes in phase of design, or by integrating the co-treating companies in a context of extended enterprise. This double integration brings obviously new communication and information technologies on the one hand and on the other, sharing of cultures, competences, responsibilities, risks of a new order. Only research is today able to bring to the European enterprises the new tools and the new organizations necessary to the resolution of these problems.

Project duration: 2004-2008

Project budget: 9 M-€

Number of person/years: not exact known

Project Coordinator: Caisse des dépôts et consignations

Participants: Caisse des dépôts et consignations, Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, UT/CTIT, Fraunhofer – IPK Berlin, Istituto di Tecnologie Industriali e Automazione – Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche – Milano, University of Bath, TEKNIKER Eibar, University of Patras, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan-Stockholm, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Comp.and Autom.Res. Inst.-Budapest, University of Ljubljana, University of Stuttgart, Institute Israel of Technology

Technion – Haïfa, Ecole Centrale Nantes, Université. Technologique de Troyes, PoliItehnica University of Timisoara, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, University of Durham, Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, Poznam University of Technology, Berliner Kreis, AIP-PRIMECA, The Netherlands Research School of Integrated Manufacturing, IPV, Pôle Productique Rhône-Alpes, University of Stellenbosch.

Project budget CTIT:

Number of person/years CTIT:

Involved groups: Design, Production and Management (DPM), Psychonomics & Human Performance Technology (PHPT), Business Information Systems

CTIT Strategic Research Orientations: NICE (Natural Interaction in Computer-mediated Environments), eProductivity