Work starts on ECOFACT, the platform aiming for manufacturing sustainability
04/01/2021, Dublin, Ireland
ECOFACT (ECO-innovative Energy FACTory Management System) is a €12,314,473.75 investment through the EU Horizon 2020 Programme running from 2020-2024. The project is made up of 20 consortium members from several European countries: Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Greece, Turkey, Ireland and Germany.
The project aims at enabling manufacturing industries to optimize the energy performance of their production systems in line with their relevant production constraints (time and resources), while at the same time introducing a novel green marketing approach through the concept of energy and environmental signature of the manufactured products from a life-cycle perspective.
The planned results will be achieved from a data-driven approach thanks to the uptake of advanced ICT technologies, while better adapting to the consumer demands through customized sustainable production. The core of the ECOFACT platform as such, will be built at this high-level (Apps & Services) layer in a multi-service approach providing an innovative holistic combination of functionalities for advanced energy-efficient, sustainable process/product design and manufacturing management.
Thus, ECOFACT concept proposes a paradigm shift that will move from so-called “end-of-pipe” industry approach where optimisation has traditionally focused very much on product functionality and purely economic criteria and less on the use of resources and production processes, to a holistic approach along the whole supply chain to ensure the uptake of eco-design and multi-dimensional production efficiency, i.e. eco-manufacturing (considering process, energy and environmental performance together).
Overall ECOFACT leverages from the present-day concepts of connected industries and Digital Manufacturing taking advantage of cutting-edge ICTs to transform the industry perspective and enable, not only energy-efficient, but also sustainable manufacturing management from an integral point of view.
