The manufacturing sector is the greatest contributor to GDP in industrialised nations (14.5% of total GDP in Europe), but also it is a major consumer of material, and energy, and a significant source of waste (over 370 million tonnes of waste are generated annually in Europe). This negative impact can be reduced by implementing value recovery practices.

Our Mission

The DiCiM project aims to develop and demonstrate integrated digital solutions that enable 
1) tracking, tracing, and condition monitoring of products during their use phase
2) optimisation of reverse logistics
3) supporting tools/solutions to enhance the efficiency and responsiveness of operations during the value recovery phase

Main Objective

The aim of the current project is to bring about the development of the full demonstrator of DiCiM, a set of integrated digital solutions that makes use of the Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning (ML) based Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, Image Processing and Augmented Reality (AR).

This can then support different actors of the industrial value chain such as managers, engineers and operators in their decision-making and carry out value recovery activities for the circular economy. DiCiM project revolves around the value use and value recovery phases of the Circular Value Model (CVM).

The integrated digital solutions include an open-access digital platform for lifecycle information management and support solutions for value recovery activities ((i.e. collection, inspection, sorting, disassembly)

DiCiM project will also demonstrate integrated digital solutions in four use cases in three industrial sectors that represent over two-thirds of the European Economy. They include whitegoods (i.e. refrigerators, washing machines), electronics (i.e. printers) and automotive. DiCiM digital solutions will boost new circular economy business models based on value recovery activities to sustain and encourage remanufacturing throughout Europe.

Expected Impacts

  1. Provide a range of support solutions and innovative digital tools for engineers, technicians, and operators on the factory floor, in order to build an agile, sustainable and responsive production environment and supply chains, with a specific focus on areas such as material saving, repair, refurbishing, re-manufacturing, recycling, and reuse of products and components

  2. Reduction of the dependency on imported raw materials or harmful materials for the European manufacturing sector (e.g. by material consumption reduction, material substitution and use of secondary raw materials);

  3. Define specifications and standards for data, products, and/or business processes, that can be agreed upon and commonly used by many industrial actors and across different industry sectors; and facilitate industry agreements on circularity and sustainability through increased data exchange among value chain actors and enable the development of new types of businesses;

  4. Reduce the skills and knowledge gap for the actors involved by developing a knowledge base in 3 manufacturing sectors. By involving operators in the demonstrations of the use cases and their development, the gap between their skills and knowledge will be significantly reduced. Furthermore, the project will develop high-quality training materials for widespread application in order to enhance the skills of the European labour force and improve their employability.

  5. Global leadership in clean and climate-neutral industrial value chains, circular economy and climate-neutral digital systems and infrastructures (networks, data centres). This will be done through innovative production and manufacturing processes and digitisation. There will be new business models, sustainable-by-design advanced materials and technologies enabling the switch to decarbonisation in all major emitting industrial sectors, including green digital technologies. The objective is to create the gold standard for value recovery in the use cases considered. The solutions developed in the project can have high replicability potential in other industrial sectors. Thus, placing European software at the centre of the global circular economy value chain.