International cooperations

Four years ago, a consortium of powertrain manufacturers and research institutions was established in Sweden with a view to strengthening and securing the competitiveness of its industrial members. The Powertrain Manufacturing for Heavy Vehicles Application Lab was established on 13 September 2016 by the Fraunhofer IPT, the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, the Swerea KIMAB and Swerea IVF research institutes (members of the research network RISE – Research Institutes of Sweden), the Technical University of Chalmers and the industrial manufac-turers Scania, Volvo Trucks and Sandvik. Through the projects of the new centre, the partners will develop technologies for the mass production of components in the powertrains of heavy-duty vehicles and improve conventional production processes.

On 26 April 2017, the consortium started a separate German-Swedish initiative to support and encourage exchanges of Industry 4.0 technologies and of new ideas of how to implement them, called the “Swedish-German Testbed for Smart Production”. The joint venture had been inspired by a panel discussion to mark the opening of the technology forum which was jointly hosted by the German-Swedish Chamber of Commerce and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) and which was attended by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel as well as the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. In their joint declaration, the governments of both countries had emphasized the importance of four research areas: life sciences, production and materials, mobility, and energy / the environment. The test beds are designed as pilot lines for the assessment of innovative smart products or production systems and for the development of ways to combine them into efficiently operating networks.

Powertrain Manufacturing for Heavy Vehicles Application Lab

In January 2017, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft opened the Fraunhofer Project Center (FPC) on the campus of the University of Twente. The FPC is a joint venture of the Fraunhofer IPT, the University of Twente and the Saxion University of Applied Sciences in Enschede. These three institutions aim to accelerate the cross-border development of complex and sophisticated technologies for Industrie 4.0 in Germany as well as the Netherlands. The joint venture is designed to strengthen the competitive position of all partners, supporting the market-oriented development of “smart industries” on both sides of the Dutch-German border.

Center for Design and Production Engineering for Complex High-Tech Systems

In May 2017, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft opened its first Fraunhofer Project Centre in Ireland, a joint venture of the Fraunhofer IPT and Dublin City University (DCU). The FPC@DCU intends to combine the two partners’ skills and experience in the development of micro-fluidic lab-on-a-chip systems that are employed for applications in medicine, the pharmaceutical in-dustry, production and analytics. The Science Foundation Ireland and Fraunhofer support the project with an amount of EUR 2.5 million euros each for a period of five years. The Fraunhofer IPT hopes to use the joint venture as a means of gaining access to potential clients from the medical technology industry (which is very strong in Ireland), while our Irish partners welcome the opportunity of establishing contacts and networks within the international research community of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

FPC@DCU

For many years, the Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing In-novation CMI has been closely cooperating with the Fraunhofer IPT in many areas of research. Together with Boston University, the Fraunhofer CMI has developed production technology solutions for various industries ranging from biotechnology and biomedicine and photonics to renewable energies. Their joint research has focused on high-precision automation systems for high-tech applications and medical technology equipment. Their close partnership allows both Fraunhofer IPT and CMI to offer foreign clients production technology research and develop-ment services at their own production sites while providing a bridge for mutually beneficial technology transfers between European and US-based manufacturers.

Fraunhofer CMI

• Centro de Competência em Manufatura, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Brasilien
• Fundação CERTI (Centros de Referência em Tecnologias Inovadoras), Brasilien
• Laboratorio de Mecanica de Precisao, Brasilien
• ITTC, VR China
• Tsinghua Universität, VR China
• Tokyo Women's Medical University, Japan
• Universiti Teknologi, Malaysia
• Boston University, USA