Manufacturing R&D
Foresight exercises in manufacturing R&D in Germany tends to be carried out by the Bildungsministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
2014 – BMBF
2010 – BMBF/ Project Management Agency Karlsruhe (PTCA)
In Germany, there have been notable documents assessing the future of high value manufacturing. Germany’s priorities for manufacturing R&D are governed by a number of considerations.
- energy, environmental and sustainability manufacturing challenges;
- market orientation and strategic product planning;
- digital manufacturing and advanced automation;
- production systems and processes for emerging technologies (and non-traditional ‘manufacturing’ sectors);
- people in flexible and responsive manufacturing firms;
- flexible production networks and systems for customized production;
- protection of production know-how and products in global manufacturing systems
In Germany’s Rahmenkonzept "Forschung für die Produktion von morgen" (Framework Concept for the Production of Tomorrow), a component of the High Tech Strategy for Germany, there are four thematic fields of action.
- Market orientation, strategic product planning, services
- Software development
- Product development
- Prototype production
- Sustainable production
- Business segment planning
- Production processes and production equipment,
- Primary shaping and recasting
- Chipping
- Surfaces and layers
- Heat treatment
- Assembling
- Measurement engineering
- etc.
- Cooperation of producing enterprises
- Logistics
- Cooperation
- People in flexible enterprises
- Skilled industrial labour
- Plant design
- Assembling
- Company development
Applications under this programme are to be made on the basis of future orientation (cutting-edge technology, high risk innovation), economic relevance, a systemic approach (interdisciplinarity, cooperation between business and science, concepts for project controlling), and a broad range of potential impact (sector-wise), education and further training aspects.
A 2010 document produced by the Project Management Agency Karlsruhe (PTCA) for the Bildungsministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Herausforderungen für die Produktion(sforschung) 2020, identifies a collection of production challenges of the future.
- New Production Technologies for future energy systems
- development of highly productive plants for the production of photovoltaic cells, wind turbines and heat pumps
- development and establishment of international standards
- Innovation leadership through know-how clusters and supplier networks
- Value chains and production technologies / systems for electric mobility
- Setting the standard for the electric drive of the future
- create conditions for the development of a national value chain (strategy, clusters, technology) for battery and drives
- development of new production methods and machines necessary for competitive production
- automation concepts
- Resource-efficient production technologies
- From the source-sink economy to a circular economy
- Production technologies for the markets of tomorrow
- hi-tech production technology for low-cost products
- Culture Room Specific product design and production related technologies
- benefit rather than product sales / integration of product and service
- Digital Factory / IT in the factory of the future
- Progress through integrated MES, PPS, ERP systems
- Holistic simulation of product un product systems
- Augmented & Virtual Reality
- PLM integration
- The forward-looking prototypes - and mold at the beginning of the value chain
- Generative Method for the gentle and customized production
- Process chains for custom products
- Automation know-how to expand
- cognition in planning and programming
- Robotics for service, logistics
- Low-cost automation, human-machine interface
- "Intelligent" drive technology, sensor-actuator technique
- New forms of learning for the production of tomorrow
- Training factories for excellent production technical education and training
- areas of learning and teaching for the factory of the future
- concepts for virtual and real production environment
- New production technologies for medical technology of tomorrow
- Production of customized implants
- Complete equipment for hospitals
- Chemical and Pharmaceutical Production Technology
- The chemical plant: modular manufacturing cells and changeability
- Micro Process Engineering: Key for new products
- The demographics-oriented factory
- Age-appropriate work systems
- training concepts
- Innovative machine tool technology as the basis of a production technology leadership
- integration process / multi-technology platform
- Holistic simulation of machine and process in terms of quality, time and resources
- Innovative user interfaces
- High-performance manufacturing procedures to ensure progress in the core sectors
- process stability at the limit productivity
- Simultaneous engineering manufacturing processes, equipment and product
- Expertise in high-performance process chains for future growth centres
- "intelligent" process chains, best practice
- Integrated quality assurance, process control
- simulation tools, closed simulation chain
- Product development, foresight and system-oriented
- Strategic development of product innovations
- Innovation speed increase by gearing material science, development methodology, production technology
- Methods for integrated product and production system development
- The breathing and versatile production network
- linkage of flexible capacity structures un adaptable networks
- Reconfigurable building and production technology
- Adaptable organizational structures
- Supply Chain Management
- Know-how protection in dynamic markets
- production technology with integrated protection against plagiarism
- Production technologies for identification