Improving Resource-efficiency in Manufacturing

ended

With LCE-Tool, we aim to disrupt the production machinery industry, by commercializing a tool to improve resource efficiency in manufacturing, via time efficient prediction and analysis of energy and material flows in the manufacturing and use phase. The manufacturing industry contributes to 20% of EU’s resource and energy demand, with high influence on the resource and energy efficiency properties of the produced products. Quantifying the energy/heat waste and identifying where the losses take place is key to increase energy and materials efficiency. Although there are numerous simulation tools towards this direction, the root casualties of each system’s energy demand cannot be yet identified, as the existing solutions provide limited information about the interconnection between manufacturing process of the machine, the final product and product performance during the use phase (trade-off limited quantification, inability to identify the stage of every loss). LCE-Tool is the first life-cycle engineering software, allowing the sustainable design and operation of production machines, through a holistic evaluation of machine’s performance during both the design stage (machine producer) and the procurement process of new machines (machine user). Thus, we are able to decrease the power demand and the material consumption by 25% during the manufacturing process and enable the creation of virtual prototypes of high accuracy, providing up to 50% enhanced time and cost efficiency, as there is not more need for multiple expensive physical prototypes. At ZÜST, we have high expertise in systems engineering, eco-design and project management. With LCE-Tool we aim to become a pioneering software company offering novel simulation solutions. Through this project we aim to create at least 20 new job positions. With a Phase 2 investment of €1.22M, this would imply a Return of Investment of 4.8