Challenges and Founding Pillars for a Manufacturing Platform to Support Value Networks Operating in a Circular Economy Framework

This research received no external funding. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Circularity is clearly a competitive advantage and a market opportunity for European industries. From this perspective, while digitalization is largely recognized as an accelerator and an enabler of Circular Economy, the fact that European industry is strong but fragmented (highly special-ized medium-and small-sized companies have different needs and different tools) naturally results in the proliferation of commercial platforms for digitalized manufacturing. If such fragmentation is not properly addressed, it will eventually become a threat to European competitiveness. Despite some examples, value networks still do not operate in a seamless, transparent, and effective way. This paper addresses the challenges and the resulting technical funding pillars for an IDS (International Data Space) manufacturing platform meant to empower a fully digital circular thread of products and services.publishersversionpublishe

The reference site collaborative network of the european innovation partnership on active and healthy ageing

Seventy four Reference Sites of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP on AHA) have been recognised by the European Commission in 2016 for their commitment to excellence in investing and scaling up innovative solutions for active and healthy ageing. The Reference Site Collaborative Network (RSCN) brings together the EIP on AHA Reference Sites awarded by the European Commission, and Candidate Reference Sites into a single forum. The overarching goals are to promote cooperation, share and transfer good practice and solutions in the development and scaling up of health and care strategies, policies and service delivery models, while at the same time supporting the action groups in their work. The RSCN aspires to be recognized by the EU Commission as the principal forum and authority representing all EIP on AHA Reference Sites. The RSCN will contribute to achieve the goals of the EIP on AHA by improving health and care outcomes for citizens across Europe, and the development of sustainable economic growth and the creation of jobs

Sustainability-driven innovation: technologies, methodologies and business models for a more sustainable manufacturing

Sustainability has become a common theme in many knowledge areas. Most farsighted manufacturing enterprises started investing on sustainability to seize the opportunity of such a global trend: being sustainable is becoming a picklock for accessing most demanding customers, and a lever to differentiate from lower wages countries productions. In fact, the manufacturing sector lies at the core of industrial economies, and consumers start requesting production to be made sustainable in order to preserve the high standard of living achieved by industrialized societies. Sustainability declarations, becoming more and more frequent especially in large enterprises, have forced a wider number of manufacturing companies in including sustainability-related objectives in their strategies. However, translating such a strategy into sustainability-virtuous operational behaviours is still a not-fully-answered concern for managers. In fact, literature is full of methodologies promising more sustainable performances for adopters, but practical tools intended for actual decision-makers are few and just partial (in terms of contexts of use, addressed product lifecycle phases, pondered sustainability dimensions, target users). Moreover, a wide plethora of manufacturing technologies are available or are being developed taking into account both the technical and the environmental performances, but which is the most pertinent solution for a given decision maker? The here presented thesis work aims at paving the way towards the future of sustainability implementation in manufacturing contexts, providing a detailed overview on the founding pillars of the sustainability-related manufacturing paradigm and including technologies, methodologies, and business models aspiring to become practical tools for the sustainability-driven innovator. Practical examples will be performed also including specific technological solutions developed by the author (and other researchers) in order to demonstrate the achievability of the mentioned goal

A Multi-Level Approach to Improve Sustainability Performances of Industrial Agglomerations

Documented experiences of industrial symbiosis are always triggered and driven only by economic goals: environmental and (even rarely) social results are sometimes assessed and declared as effects of virtuous behaviours, but are merely casual and un-pursued side externalities. Even worse: all the symbiotic project candidates entailing economic loss for just one of the (also dozen) partners are simply stopped without considering the overall benefit for the whole partnership. The here-presented approach aims at providing methodologies and tools to effectively manage these situations and fostering the implementation of virtuous symbiotic investments in manufacturing aggregations for a more sustainable production

Mass customization and sustainability: an assessment framework and industrial implementation

To adapt to global competitive pressures, manufacturers must develop methods and enabling technologies towards a personalized, customer oriented and sustainable manufacturing. Mass Customization and Sustainability defines the two concepts of mass customization and sustainability and introduces a framework to establish a link between the two concepts to answer the questions: Are these two aspects empowering one another? Or are they hindering one another?   These questions investigate mass customization as one of the main driving forces to achieve effective sustainability.  A methodology to assess the contribution of mass customization to sustainability is developed, providing an assessment model composed by a set of indicators covering the three aspects of sustainability: social, economical and environmental. This is supported and further explained using ideas and new concepts compiled from recent European research.   Researchers, scientists, managers and industry professionals alike can follow a set of practical examples and industrial cases, enabling them to easily transfer Mass Customization and Sustainability theoretical concepts into actions to be enforced into their everyday business for gaining competitiveness.  Mass Customization and Sustainability also introduces useful concepts for  government officials responsible for establishing sustainable policies and regulations, offering methods to compare the results of implementation of such policies

Mass Customization and SustainabilityAn assessment framework and industrial implementation /

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Sustainability Assessment and Advisory in Mould&Die: Implementation Challenges and Solutions

Part 1: Knowledge-Based SustainabilityInternational audienceThe paper describes a possible but concrete implementation pattern that is currently used to introduce and apply a sustainability-centered strategy in a mould&die company (INTERROLL SA). Focus of the analysis, implementation requirements, designed procedures and a draft software architecture are here outlined, forming the conceptual basis for a value-adding and easily adoptable approach intended to promote the implementation of a so widely-speculated strategic theory. The described path could be easily adapted to other mould&die companies and further extended to different industrial sectors

Three-Dimensional Bioprinted Controlled Release Scaffold Containing Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Lyosecretome for Bone Regeneration: Sterile Manufacturing and In Vitro Biological Efficacy

Recently, 3D-printed scaffolds for the controlled release of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) freeze-dried secretome (Lyosecretome) have been proposed to enhance scaffold osteoinduction and osteoconduction; coprinting of poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) with alginate hydrogels allows adequate mechanical strength to be combined with the modulable kinetics of the active principle release. This study represents the feasibility study for the sterile production of coprinted scaffolds and the proof of concept for their in vitro biological efficacy. Sterile scaffolds were obtained, and Lyosecretome enhanced their colonization by MSCs, sustaining differentiation towards the bone line in an osteogenic medium. Indeed, after 14 days, the amount of mineralized matrix detected by alizarin red was significantly higher for the Lyosecretome scaffolds. The amount of osteocalcin, a specific bone matrix protein, was significantly higher at all the times considered (14 and 28 days) for the Lyosecretome scaffolds. Confocal microscopy further confirmed such results, demonstrating improved osteogenesis with the Lyosecretome scaffolds after 14 and 28 days. Overall, these results prove the role of MSC secretome, coprinted in PCL/alginate scaffolds, in inducing bone regeneration; sterile scaffolds containing MSC secretome are now available for in vivo pre-clinical tests of bone regeneration