26 January 2015, Brussels – The MEMAN project was launched today with the aim of improving the competitiveness of European companies in the metal mechanic sector, one of the biggest industrial sectors in the EU. The project is based on an innovative approach that will address resource efficiency optimisation of whole manufacturing value chains instead of isolated single company or process optimisation, and will look at resource efficiency with a holistic view that includes energy, raw materials and other supplies in the integrated optimisation approach.
26 January 2015, Brussels – The MEMAN project was launched today with the aim of improving the competitiveness of European companies in the metal mechanic sector, one of the biggest industrial sectors in the EU. The project is based on an innovative approach that will address resource efficiency optimisation of whole manufacturing value chains instead of isolated single company or process optimisation, and will look at resource efficiency with a holistic view that includes energy, raw materials and other supplies in the integrated optimisation approach.
The MEMAN consortium brings together fifteen partners from six countries including industrial enterprises, SMEs, and experts in eco-innovative models, who will be working on optimising resource efficiency across three manufacturing value chain cases: casting, machining, and surface finishing. This will be done through the full validation of new business models that allow for collaboration of different companies in the whole value chain, and provide practical decision-making support.
The development of approaches for organisational and technological optimisation will be led by three competence clusters: Casting (led by MCC – Entrepreneurial Innovation Cluster, Basque Country, Spain); Machining (by MV – Entrepreneurial Association, Rhone-Alpes Region, France); and Surface Finishing (by EIFFO – Industrial Innovation Cluster, Germany – Austria).
It is expected that the MEMAN project will modify the consumption patterns of the whole metalworking value chain, achieving reduction of energy consumption, CO2 emission and the Product Life Cycle Cost of existing and future products. Given the significantly increasing need to limit greenhouse gas emissions, as well as escalating costs of energy resources and raw materials, the project is of strategic importance for the European economy.
Project coordinator, Mr. Joseba Pérez Bilbatua of Mondragon Corporation said that underpinning these new models in innovation and supply chain through 3 different scenarios will provide EU manufacturing industry with tools to support everything from the R&D and manufacturing to decision support and data analysis, as well as material and energy flow and supply chain visibility.
This three-and-a-half year initiative is a single project awarded under the Factories of the Future topic, ‘Global energy and other resources efficiency in manufacturing enterprises (FoF-03– 2014)’, and is funded by the European Commission.
Background information
MEMAN stands for “Integral Material and Energy flow MANagement in MANufacturing metal mechanic sector’’. It involves 15 partners and will receive almost 6 million Euros of funding from the European Union under Horizon 2020 under grant agreement no.636926. It is coordinated by Mondragon Corporation (Spain), and is set to run until June 2018.