Challenges and Founding Pillars for a Manufacturing Platform to Support Value Networks Operating in a Circular Economy Framework

Abstract

Circularity is clearly a competitive advantage and a market opportunity for European industries. From this perspective, while digitalization is largely recognized as an accelerator and an enabler of Circular Economy, the fact that European industry is strong but fragmented (highly specialized medium- and small-sized companies have different needs and different tools) naturally results in the proliferation of commercial platforms for digitalized manufacturing. If such fragmentation is not properly addressed, it will eventually become a threat to European competitiveness. Despite some examples, value networks still do not operate in a seamless, transparent, and effective way. This paper addresses the challenges and the resulting technical funding pillars for an IDS (International Data Space) manufacturing platform meant to empower a fully digital circular thread of products and services.

Keywords

• industrial cyber-physical systems (ICPSs)
• manufacturing platform
• circular economy
• data integration
• data management
• competitive digitization