Reshaping and Rebuilding European Manufacturing: Advanced AM Solutions for a Sustainable and Resilient Industry

Purpose and goal:

The project aimed at generating a competitive proposal for the call “Manufacturing as a Service (MaaS): Technologies for customised, flexible, and decentralised production on demand” of the Horizon Europe 2024 Framework Programme. A consortium was established, having 15 partners from five EU countries and the UK. The proposal intended to develop advanced multi-material AM technologies, digital service platform, and business models, to ensure holistic approach to the MaaS paradigm. The solutions will be verified by real life applications across four industrial sectors.

Expected results and effects:

The major result of the project is a successful submission of the project proposal together with a project consortium of 15 members having complementary expertise and resources. The proposal received score that is over the threshold (qualified for finance) but failed due to extremely strong competition, where the winning percentage is below 8%. Nevertheless, this process has strengthened the network with research organisations and industrial companies in Europe. Moreover, the experiences and the refined project ideas could be the base for future applications.

Approach and implementation:

The project was initiated by RISE together with organisations from Germany, Spain, and the UK. Based on the initial project ideas, the consortium building process began with a special focus on the end-use cases. A preliminary project structure was created, and the work packages leaders were assigned.

Organisations with complementary expertise and resources were added and the project structure adjusted or refined. The drafting of the project proposal was coordinated by the coordinator, with support from the WP leaders, while the budget work was led by the co-coordinator.