UdZ 1-2011

44 Unternehmen der Zukunft 1/2011 UdZ Produktionsmanagement IMS2020 Mapping the future of manufacturing research A massive, international project is underway to shape the future of intelligent manufacturing and highlight the key innovation milestones needed to achieve a more sustainable and vibrant industry by the year 2020. The aim of IMS2020 is to predict the challenges to be met if the manufacturing industry is to undergo the “deep industrial transformation” which experts say is needed to meet the environmental, social and economic challenges of tomorrow, says project leader Marco Taisch. IMS2020 was launched in January 2009 as a 24-month 2.86 million euro project (since extended to 30 months), with 2 million euro of European Commission funding and an international consortium of 15 companies, universities and research centres from several countries. Professor Volker Stich said: “My dream is to have a more sustainable manufacturing industry that is still profitable within a highly competitive world but is better for future generations and doesn’t have the huge negative impact that we have on the environment today." IMS2020 is conducted under the international, industry-led IMS (Intelligent Manufacturing Systems) Initiative established to develop the next generation of manufacturing and processing technologies, and is partly aimed at supporting global European-centric research. It is an indica- tion of the high level of industry interest that not only is the website – www.ims2020.net – getting a great deal of hits, but more than 250 organi- sations worldwide have signed up to the project which is also supported by policy-makers. From reactive to proactive The project’s strength lies in the amount of support and industry involvement it has achie- ved. The stakeholders in this project are not just European; it is sponsored by the internati- onal community – IMS is an initiative between European Union, the United States, Switzerland, Korea and Mexico – and the opinions are not just that of a small collective of people but of the international community and the policy makers. IMS2020 has five key objectives, the first of which is to prepare a coherent roadmap for fu- ture manufacturing research in the five IMS key What will manufacturing look like in a decade’s time? Read about how an international consor- tium of companies and universities is mapping the challenges that must be met in order to develop a highly competitive but sustainable industry of the future. The project is funded by the European Commission (project no. CSA-CA 233469) areas. The roadmap is “the core” of the project. It is the tool that enables the EU to look into the future, analyse the trends and design the way to move from the reactive approach to the proactive approach. In these terms IMS2020 lays a cornerstone for the wealth and sustainability of society and offers the possibility of creating the future of manufacturing, Now roughly halfway through the project, IMS2020 has completed its roadmap which is available on the website and is engaged in cre- ating international and inter-regional research communities in the five key areas of research identified by IMS as vital to the future of manuf- acturing. Other objectives include identifying new schemes and frameworks for IMS research; stimulating small and medium enterprises’ par- ticipation in international cooperative research and development projects; and preparing the ground for new IMS proposals and manuf- acturing projects, including paving the way for legislation. Five Key Area Topics The five Key Area Topics – or KATs – identified by IMS as vital to developing the intelligent manufacturing systems of the future include sustainable manufacturing, products and services; energy efficient manufacturing; key technologies; standardisation; and innovati- on, competence development and education. These have been further broken down into areas of research; for example, there are 26 projects in the sustainable manufacturing, products and services KAT, ranging from pre- dictive maintenance and sustainable packaging to quality embedded manufacturing, which looks at how machines embedded with smart devices can be wirelessly networked under intelligent control systems to enable real-time data gathering and remote monitoring, thus providing a new environment for enhancing quality management in manufacturing. In the energy efficient manufacturing KAT, IMS2020 is focussing on how to reduce the use of scar- ce resources and minimise companies’ carbon footprint by considering innovative methods and technologies. In key technologies it is looking at model-based enterprises, nanotech- Projekttitel IMS2020 Projektträger EuropäischeKommission Projektpartner Institute for Industrial Management (FIR) at RWTH Aachen, Germany; Swiss Federal Institute of TechnologyZürich(ETH), Switzerland; European Committee for Standar- dization(CEN),EU;COMAU, Italy; ClemsonUniversity, USA; École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Fatronik, Spain; Institutefor Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), EU; Keio University, Japan; Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Korea; Institute of Industrial Technologies andAutomation (ITIA), Italy; Holcim, Switzerland; Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway; Rockwell Collins, USA Ihr Kontakt am FIR Dipl.-Wirtsch. Ing. Dirk Oedekoven Website www.ims2020.net Veranstaltung im Rahmen des Projekts „World Manufacturing Forum " vom 16. – 17. Mai in Como (Italien)