Information process-system modelling for Circular Economy of manufacturing systems

Abstract

Recent push towards sustainable development have lead machine tool builders to begin adopting novel business models which are usually peculiar in product-service-systems. In particular, business models as ‘pay-per-use’ introduced the issue of rental of production capacity integrated with the management of the life cycle of assets in a Circular Economy perspective. However, when it comes to machine tool builders, the high degree of customization of capital goods and in particular of multi-stage automated assembly systems that are strongly linked to the characteristics of the final product make this solution more difficult. Hence, the implementation of such business models represents a clear challenge for machine tool builders and manufacturing system suppliers from technological perspective. This work discusses preliminary results in the technological implications of such strategy. A real industrial case related to cross-sector multi-stage automated assembly systems is presented to highlight the technological challenges and potential research directions.