Press Releases

Nowadays, workers on the shop floor are required to operate increasingly complex machinery whilst reacting flexibly to any disturbances. At the EMO Metal Working Trade Fair in Hanover from 18 – 23 September in Hall 25, Booth B94, Mitsubishi Electric and the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT will be revealing for the first time, a smart information system which will deliver information tailored to match the requirements of the job in hand, straight from the machine control unit to the machine operator. This will slash the time required by the operator to make a decision and will permit even unfamiliar tasks to be solved more swiftly and more flexibly.

Cost efficiency coupled with high productivity without any adverse impact on the environment: As part of the EU “PoLaRoll” Project, the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen is collaborating with the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT in Oberhausen and with partners from industry to develop a module capable of direct laser micro-structuring in a roll-to-roll process. The aim is to produce a sieve-like metal foil to serve as a demonstrator which will be used to protect glass facades from the effects of the sun: their special geometry will lower the impact of solar radiation, thereby reducing the amount of energy required in order to cool and ventilate the building.

”Internet of Production for Agile Enterprises” was the guiding theme of the 29th AWK Aachen Machine Tool Colloquium on May 18 and 19, 2017. The highlights of the conference, which was organized by the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering WZL of RWTH Aachen University and the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, comprised the introduction of the first production car developed by using Industrie 4.0 methods, the opening of Europe’s largest (30 000 m²) research cluster for production technology at the RWTH Aachen Campus as well as the inauguration of the newly established RWTH Aachen Business School.

Pipes for the oil and gas industry, particularly risers, which are used to transport raw materials from the seabed to the surface, have to meet specific requirements. They are highly relevant to security because every single pipe must be able to fully withstand the enormous loads of deep-sea production. Hence, controlling the manufacturing process of wound thermoplastic fiber-reinforced pipes is extremely complex. The same applies to pressure tanks, which are used in the automotive industry for brake and suspension systems of trucks. The EU research project “ambliFibre”, consisting of thirteen international partners led by the Aachen-based Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, focuses on the manufacturing of these pipes and pressure vessels and aims to develop an Industrie-4.0-compliant, highly flexible and reliable control system.

“Swedish-German Testbed for Smart Production” is the name of a newly established German-Swedish initiative, which serves as a communication platform regarding the concrete implementation of various Industrie 4.0 technologies. This close collaboration was initiated by a discussion group during the opening of the German-Swedish Technology Forum, a cooperation between the German-Swedish Chamber of Commerce and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) and with the participation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. The German involvement in the initiative is accompanied and monitored by the two Fraunhofer Institutes in Aachen and Chemnitz. A first workshop with the Swedish partners was held at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen on April 26, 2017.

Over 250 experts from 19 countries attended the fourth International Conference for Turbomachinery Manufacture, the ICTM Conference 2017, held 15 – 16 February in Aachen. There were 20 presentations given by speakers from the companies acknowledged as market leaders in the sector, reporting on the latest developments and emerging technologies for both manufacturing and using turbomachinery and its components in the aviation and power generation industries..

Industrial manufacturing usually follows rigidly programmed processes, in which individual work steps and machines are tightly scheduled. This makes production inflexible and causes problems if devices fail or unscheduled com- ponents need to be processed at short notice. At the Hannover Messe Preview on February 9, 2017, Fraunhofer developers will be presenting new software that allows each individual component to tell the machine what has to be done. By breaking away from central production planning, factories can achieve unprecedented agility and flexibility, very much in the spirit of Industrie 4.0.

When manufacturing optical lenses, every detail counts. In order to increrase stability of manufacturing processes while making them faster and more cost-efficient at the same time, Fraunhofer researchers are developing tools and production processes for optical elements of new glass materials. At the Photonics West trade fair in San Francisco from January 28 to February 2, 2017, Fraunhofer experts will be showing how Industry 4.0 approaches can improve the development and manufacture of glass optics and how companies in the optics market can profit from new techonologies and digital tools, like simulations on smart glasses or tablets.

On Monday, 23 January 2017, the Fraunhofer Project Center for Design and Production Engineering for Complex High-Tech Systems at the University of Twente (FPC@UT) was officially opened by the Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs, Henk Kamp. The Center is an in-house unit at the campus of the University of Twente (UT) and has a starting phase of five years. The Campus is also home to Kennispark Twente, Netherlands’ largest innovation campus, where more than 380 high-tech companies combine engineering and entrepreneurship to develop cutting-edge products used around the world.

The assembly of laser systems demands high-precision orientation of the optical components to one another. An assembly platform incorporating a micro-manipulator, which ensures flexible automation of this task, has been developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen. For commercialization purposes, Fraunhofer IPT has licensed the machine platform to its youngest spin-off company AIXEMTEC GmbH. This permits optical components for high-power diode lasers, miniaturized lenses or projectors for structured light, for example to be aligned and bonded automatically. The Fraunhofer IPT will be unveiling the new system in front of an expert audience at “SPIE Photonics West” from 28 January till 2 February 2017 in San Francisco.