"The idea for this project, submitted to the Erasmus+ National Agency in the UK, arose from the fact that there is a lack of qualified personnel in the car body repair sector. Following a report from Boston Consulting Group, ""The European Aftermarket Landscape"", which says that ""the total market volume for the five analysed focus markets (Germany, France, Great Britain, Spain and Poland) is approximately 115 billion euros"", it is easy to understand the target for the impacts of CARBOREP. From that very same report, it is worth mentioning that ""The introduction of new vehicle materials such as aluminium, carbon and UV paint require special tools, instruments and increased training requirements as well. ""Once more, it is clear the need for the ECBRT professional; for a harmonised training solution for all the personnel working in this sector: the European Car Body Repair Technician. The project aimed to resolve the skills mismatch for the employers of companies involved in car body repair processes. CARBOREP has developed a harmonized training course for personnel involved in this activity, designed to satisfy the requirements of both large enterprises and SMEs in different European countries, and creating a European Car Body Repair Technician curriculum, associated training materials and assessment scheme.The consortium consisted of 4 partners. EWF is the European Federation for Welding, Joining and Cutting, with a Training and Qualification network covering 31 member countries that was essential in the implementation and dissemination of the CARBOREP results. The remaining partners were the welding and quality institutes of the UK (TWI), Portugal (ISQ), and Spain (CESOL), which have strong knowledge and expertise in training and qualification at a sector-based level. TWI acted as the Project Coordinator, in direct contact with the National Agency in the UK.The CARBOREP project addressed the lack of specific qualifications and training schemes available for personnel working in the vehicle repair and maintenance industry (specifically for car body repair) in Europe. By creating a high quality curriculum, which features state of the art technologies and manufacturing processes used in car body repair, CARBOREP provides a methodology by which personnel can demonstrate their competence and guarantee the quality of their work and enhance motor vehicle safety. CARBOREP is a harmonised training solution for all personnel working in the car body repair sector and enables local repair workshops and other independent operators to maintain currency with advancing manufacturing techniques and ensure vehicle repair and maintenance routines are performed correctly. This project will have a significant impact across Europe, because it created a professional profile (European Car Body Repair Technician - ECBRT) that covers a specific market need. The project gains even more relevance because the skills and qualification profile development was done at a European level, with a transnational scope, aligned with the European market needs, and then transferred to the national level. This contributes to achieving the European Union's targets and the objectives of the Erasmus+ program of increasing the labour market relevance of VET and reducing skills mismatches and shortages.In addition, and based on the number of companies that work in motor vehicle repair in Europe, there is presently a high need for new VET-content for the training, qualification and certification activities in this field. Common VET-qualifications for personnel working in the car body repair industry, currently offered on a local or national level, are not able to deliver a systematic approach to VET for this occupation. CARBOREP closes this gap and delivers a European qualification standard, improves the quality of the VET-system by incorporating common European tools (e.g. RPL, Learning Outcomes, EQF, ECVET), promoting the transparency, recognition of competences and mutual synergies between I-VET and C-VET. The CARBOREP outputs are designed to boost the skills capital of this sector, important due to its market size, and support an industry-based skills network in order to promote the further need-oriented skills development. CARBOREP fostered the involvement of different stakeholders in making VET more responsive to the needs of the labour market. Having identified the above-mentioned needs, this project created a harmonised training guideline featuring a modular curriculum built with Learning Outcomes, training materials in 3 languages (English, Spanish and Portuguese) and design of the assessment for the trainees. All of these results help mitigate the identified EU market shortfalls."

OPeraTIC will develop a highly efficient and modular manufacturing platform to boost the adoption of high-power Ultra-Short Pulsed Lasers, as a sustainable alternative to current surface processing. The OPeraTIC open, interoperable and expandable architecture will tackle the industrial entrance barriers of laser microstructuring of large 3D parts. OPeraTIC provides the required productivity/quality through different developments: (i) combination of advanced optical modules for beam transport and manipulation (ii) dexterous and precision robotic manipulator. iii) AI-enhanced process planning and adaptability. OPeraTIC proposes a modular and automated routing of optical components guaranteeing versatility and replicability, i.e beam delivery (polarization maintaining fiber), management (dynamic control beam shaping) and metrology (novel optical setups for product & process monitoring). On top of that, OPeraTIC will develop a system architecture for the upscaling of USPL machines to large envelope and complex trajectories, driven by a novel RAMI4.0-compliant controller (merging dexterous manipulation with high level CNC motion accuracy and full synchronization of motion, laser process and quality control). Finally, OPeraTIC proposes an I4.0-compliant platform for systematic data exchange and integrated bidirectional communication (Automation-ML and OPC-UA standards) between real environment and its digital representation. This end-to-end seamless connection enhances a Machine Intelligence Framework for the definition of Zero Defect Manufacturing strategies, empowered by AI and real-time monitorization and control, for process optimisation. A consortium of 4 top Research Institutions and 7 laser sector industry partners, backed by 2 adoption-oriented partners, will demonstrate OPeraTIC potential on relevant and high impact large-scale use-cases by 4 industrial end-users in the automotive, aeronautic, lighting, and white goods sectors.

AID4SME will facilitate SMEs in developing combined AI and data solutions for large scale resource optimisation challenges for industries that have significant impact on the objectives of the Green Deal. Minimum 20 SMEs, selected through 2 open calls, will receive FSTP to develop these solutions with the support of a Community of Practice (COP). The ambition is to create a COP that will continue after the project lifetime. AID4SME brings together 9 technology blocks and low-TRL playgrounds from 4 scientific partners, to educate and support the SMEs. Additionally, 4 large industry partners (from automotive, whitegoods, battery and energy sector) provide real-life large scale resource optimization challenges that require combined AI and data solutions, and high-TRL playgrounds to integrate and demonstrate the solutions.AID4SME offers an open platform that is flexible to bring in challenges from outside the consortium. AID4SME provides the infrastructure and learning environment that enable the SMEs to solve the challenges, demonstrate solutions and grow into impactful enterprises. The technology blocks cover a wide area of AI & data technologies for the full cycle of data collection, creation of insights, decision support and automation. These technologies have the potential to have significant impact on the Green Transition and boost EU competitiveness for industries. AID4SME will collaborate with the AI-on-Demand platform to enrich its repository with the AID4SME tools and framework, while it is open to deploy the tools/frameworks already available on the AI-on-Demand platform for new use cases. AID4SME will assess the impact of the developed technologies on Green Deal objectives and on social and human aspects. AID4SME brings along partners who are experienced in re-skilling and up-skilling of SMEs and applying standardization as enabler for exploitation. The wide geographical coverage, with partners and DIHs from all across Europe, ensures maximum impact.

Remanufacturing is critical for Circular Economies, extending product life, creating jobs and revenue streams, and reducing waste, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions. The main challenges that need to be addressed for successful remanufacturing in an industrial value chain or, more appropriately, value cycle are related to process, design, and business models. To meet these challenges, RESTORE will offer sustainable by design remanufacturing process and materials along with supporting tools for digitalization of remanufacturing ecosystem or value chain. RESTORE is aiming to advance potential SoA cladding technologies including laser direct energy deposition, plasma transfer arc process for sustainable remanufacturing application. To increase the deposition rate for large scale applications, we are aiming to develop a novel hybrid process combining laser and PTA process. We are aiming to manufacture wire feedstock with recycled content and develop a wire feeding system coupled with auxiliary feeding system to transfer machining swarf/unused powder directly into the melt pool, this will pave the way to zero waste and low-cost remanufacturing technology. For digitalization, we are also aiming to develop RESTORE platform, which will offer digital technologies and tools, which are digital technologies to increase process automation, recipe book and simulation tools for product and process optimisation, decision support framework, ecoDESIGN framework, blockchain enabled digital product passport, digital marketplace, business model templates, and collaborative spaces that can help to facilitate and streamline the remanufacturing process, providing greater traceability, transparency, and efficiency. The digital collaborative space will bring all relevant actors of the remanufacturing domain under one umbrella to share data and leverage a decision support framework and supporting tool, guiding the optimal remanufacturing of industrial products and components.