A large part of production assets such as robotic arms and conveyor belts do not reach their maximum service life and become prematurely obsolescent. The machines are prematurely taken out of operation, scrapped, or at best sold for spare parts. The aim of ALICIA is to create and demonstrate a Circular Manufacturing Ecosystem (CME) for production resources, such as robotic arms or conveyor belts. The underlaying vision is that production resources will be traded between factories in Europe and reused to their maximum useful life .

The core innovative elements of ALICIA include a machine-readable ontology to map factory owner requirements, an AI-matchmaking engine to combine established factory assets with second-hand assets from the ALICIA online marketplace and a Plug & Produce middleware to seamlessly connect production assets. Digital Shadows/Digital Twins will be used to start and operate the ALICIA second-hand line. Novel Circularity-as-a-Service business models will be evaluated. The project aim will be achieved by integrating and demonstrating a combination of innovative and symbiotic digital tools as key enabling technologies of the ALICIA CME in two real industrial environments.

DIN is responsible for the standardization activities in the consortium. This includes the following tasks: compilation of an overview of published standards relevant for ALICIA, development of a standardization strategy for the ALICIA project including the analysis of standardization gaps, the identification of needs for new or revised standards, and, where appropriate, the drafting of CEN Workshop Agreements (CWA) with the project partners and any interested experts.

Project duration

01/2023 - 12/2025

Project coordination

• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN (Germany)

Project partners

• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET GRAZ (Austria)
• MTS CONSULTING ENGINEERING GMBH (Germany)
• CONTI TEMIC MICROELECTRONIC GMBH (Germany)
• ECI-MECHATRONICS GMBH (Austria)
• INSTITUT MINES-TELECOM (France)
• YAGHMA B.V. (Netherlands)
• NETCOMPANY-INTRASOFT SA (Luxembourg)
• PANEPISTIMIO PATRON (Greece)
• DIN DEUTSCHES INSTITUT FUER NORMUNG EV (Germany)
• SURPLEX IBERICA SLU (Spain)
• COMAU SPA (Italy)

Project funding

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.