Teaching Factories Competition on Green Manufacturing on the go!

EIT Manufacturing has launched Teaching Factories Competition with the focus on Green Manufacturing for its 2022 edition.

On 2 March, two separate Calls were launched: one for the companies with industrial challenges and one for the universities and VET (Vocational Education and Training) Centers. The outcome of the submission phase, that was finalised in the beginning of April, were 6 industrial challenges and 14 student teams providing solutions for making manufacturing greener and more sustainable.

On 28 April at 09:30 CET, the selected student teams and the companies met for the first time for the official launch of their collaboration. Following the launch, the teams will collaborate with the assigned companies over the course of next 8 weeks on EIT Manufacturing’s social innovation platform, AGORA.

Learn more about the selected challenges!

TF Challenge 1

Manufacturing shoe insoles towards a zero-waste policy

Who we are?
Arneplant is the EU leader in the manufacturing of shoe insoles. Located in La Rioja, Spain, it is a company originally born as a family workshop for shoe customization in 1999. Today, expanded and became a multinational company with subsidiaries in Vietnam and Romania.

What is our challenge about? 
Arneplant is a company which has integrated a totally vertical approach in their process of manufacturing insoles.  Arneplant has invested a lot in making their processes more efficient. Now, from a more holistic vision for the company and moving towards a more Industry 5.0 perspective, our innovation strategy will focus more on the green innovation aspects of our manufacturing. We are currently working towards a more sustainable and greener products by reducing waste and embracing the circular economy concepts in our processes.

TF Challenge 2

Development of failure detection system for additive manufacturing machines

Who we are?
Protosfera is a prototyping and product development company focused on the implementation of modern production technologies such as additive manufacturing, industrial digitalization (3d scanning), and automation.

What is our challenge about?
Recently our internal product development team has been focused on automation of the FFF additive manufacturing technology. As FFF production technology is still in development, the process is not yet fully automated, which often results in inefficient production with a lot of manual labour and a large amount of waste. The automation system we are developing will constantly monitor the production and optimize the process in order to minimize the wastage of time and resources.

TF Challenge 3

Best practices for enabling greener manufacturing of aeroengine products

Who we are?
GE Avio is a GE Aviation business which operates in the design, manufacture and maintenance of civil and military aeronautics subsystems and systems. With more than 5,200 employees, GE Avio delivers innovative solutions and technology at all stages of the product lifecycle, from product design & development through the production and aftermarket services, which allows our customers to respond to the continuous changes in the market, such as carbon-neutral aviation.

What is our challenge about?
GE Avio industrial operations are based on manufacturing processes, both subtractive and additive, of metal parts making use of energy intensive processes and machinery and equipment with high energy consumption, such as furnaces, heat and high pressure treatments, molding, laser and electron beam melting, machining, cutting, etc.. Our plan and goals for green manufacturing include both the upgrade of machinery and equipment in use to reduce energy consumption and the adoption of green specifications for the procurement of new ones.

TF Challenge 4

On-line continuous quality inspection for electrical cables optimization

Who we are?
Consorzio Intellimech was founded in Bergamo in 2007 to fill the gap between the research and the industrial sector, promoting the collaboration of companies of different sizes and from various industrial domains. The consortium currently involves 42 high-tech enterprises, making it one of the most important Italian private initiatives in this field.

What is our challenge about?
The challenge refers to the Intellimech partner Italian Cable Company (ICC). ICC is a leading manufacturer of power cables and electric wires for industrial applications. The ever-growing complexity of the cable market requires attention and flexibility, so throughout the years, ICC has adapted its vision in order to act for the change. More specifically, this challenge aims at improving the quality inspection process to: enhance product quality, optimize raw material usage, and reduce waste.

TF Challenge 5

Nature-Based Pure & Quiet Air

Who we are?
ISCLEANAIR pursues the technological development, the IP (intellectual property) transfer, the industrialization and commercialization of the APA (Air Pollution Abatement) technology which uses only simple water and mechanical processes, no filters nor chemicals, to reduce >99% of particulate matter and a wide range of chemical and gaseous pollutants in the air we all breathe.

What is our challenge about?
We want to cover the challenge of reducing even further the noise produced by our devices, especially those for indoor/interior design uses. More and more clients are interested in our solution, and APA is very competitive on the abatement capacity and efficacy of the technology, its nature-based solution and the low energy and maintenance costs (which are already well certified and demonstrated), however we would also like to make our devices ultra-silent, hence superior to competition in the noise produced.

TF Challenge 6

Affordable smart energy monitoring system

Who we are?
Procter & Gamble is one of the leading consumer goods companies with sales of $71.0 billion. We focus on ten product categories with around 65 brands, such as Ariel®, Pampers®, Gillette® or Oral-B®. 99,000 employees worldwide develop, test, produce and market our trusted brands. Every P&G product is supported by a supply chain committed to environmental responsibility – from the sourcing of our materials to the delivery of the final product to the shelf.

What is our challenge about?
Basic idea of this challenge is to develop an affordable solution to measure and analyze collected data of resource consumption from technical systems automatically with potential use of artificial intelligence. This way, it will be possible to work on specific root cause analysis and follow up with corrective actions. Considered resources are particularly water and energy (electrical, gas, thermal, compressed air).

Read more about Teaching Factories Competition!