RemaNet

The need for refurbishing of worn or old parts, called remanufacturing, through a proper and more conscious use of materials has become evident as supply chains have been disrupted for various reasons in the last years. However, the more complex the products are, the higher the level of expertise and the availability of multiple technologies required, which in turn prevents the diffusion of the circular economy and limits circularity at a larger scale. As such, the project RemaNet aims to establish a new business model for remanufacturing, where different companies or even users can contribute to any step of the process, allowing for a widespread diffusion of a distributed and collaborative approach. In doing so, project RemaNet will use digital tools for connecting actors in the value-chain, and horizontal digital tools that facilitate the new business model for the remanufacturing of many different goods.

Nowadays, the high complexity of production systems together with the continuously increasing customization and technological advances of manufactured goods translate into extremely heterogeneous End of Life (EoL) parts. This in turn demands extremely variable and flexible processes for the remanufacturing of goods and the support of solutions and innovative digital tools for every person involved in the production plants. Therefore, remanufacturing advanced products such as machining tools, electrical motors, and automotive parts is currently only accessible to a few highly skilled and capable actors. However, in order to enable economic circularity, this approach needs to transform to avoid having only a few global actors in this industry.

Against this background, the project RemaNet aims to establish a distributed and widespread business model enabled by digital tools that allows multiple actors to interact to gain the same capability as a single highly skilled and capable actor. Such a distributed and collaborative approach will open the doors for more companies and even users to join the market, allowing them to interact to gain the same capability as a single actor, by performing single steps of the remanufacturing process.

Within the project, a digital platform will be developed and equipped with different digital tools to facilitate the guiding vision based on the new business model for distributed and collaborative remanufacturing. This set of digital tools is designed, developed and validated, and they serve as micro-services on the RemaNet digital platform.

As such, the platform is composed of horizontal knowledge formalization digital tools for remanufacturing concerning the overall process chain such as redesign, assistance in inspection, digital twins and the prediction of a second or remaining useful life. It is also composed of vertical digital tools for process-related concerns, for example tools for the sensorization of remanufactured EoL parts and machines, or support technologies for additive manufacturing technologies, such as laser cladding and cold-spray (CSAM) technologies.

These tools will enable the full traceability of the status of machines and EoL parts during remanufacturing and during their second life. Moreover, all functionalities provided by these tools will be validated in the context of five different kinds of processes, covering different industrial sectors, to demonstrate the flexibility of the digital platform and its collection of digital tools.

Two of the use cases involve the electrical motors and cutting tools sectors including PCD and CBN cutting tools for machining operations, and aim at demonstrating most of the developed digital tools. The remaining three involve the mould and die manufacturing for lasertube and tube-bending, and automotive and energy sectors. For the energy sector, the use case focuses on rotating machinery repair through additive technologies such as Laser Cladding, thermal spray as well as babbit bearings, precision machining, special welding and reverse engineering.

As a result, the approach initiated within the project RemaNet can increase the market for certified remanufactured products, contributing to improving the competitiveness of smaller companies in the global market. Overall, the improvement of the skills and knowledge of all people involved in the remanufacturing chain will blaze sustainable innovation and could boost new types of business in this field.