Due to the proliferation of ICT Technologies, manufacturing industry is undergoing substantial transformation in terms of HW but also in terms of Cyber-Physical Production Systems and the SW and services used within production environments. In parallel, the manufacturing processes of the future are changing and need to be highly flexible and dynamic in order to satisfy customer demands for, e.g. large series production, mass customization, or changing orders. To keep pace with the needs of the manufacturing industry of the future, in Manufacturing 4.0 companies need to flexibly react to these demands and be able to offer production capacities in a rapid way. Thus companies looking for manufacturing capacity need to be supported by the means to find these capacities, configure them, and integrate them into their own manufacturing processes. To achieve this, one obvious approach is to port successful concepts from the field of Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) and Cloud computing to manufacturing to mirror agile collaboration through flexible and scalable manufacturing processes: • Leasing and releasing manufacturing assets in an on-demand, utility-like fashion • Rapid elasticity through scaling leased assets up and down if necessary • Pay-per-use through metered service Applying these principles, Cloud manufacturing can move manufacturing processes from production-oriented to service-oriented networks by modelling single manufacturing assets as services in a similar way as SaaS or PaaS solutions. By modelling all process steps and manufacturing assets as services it is possible to realize cross-organization manufacturing orchestrations and integrate distributed resources and ultimately manufacture products more efficiently. While the theoretical foundations for Cloud manufacturing are manifest there are no proven tools and technologies exist in the market - CREMA aims to change this fact by providing Cloud-based Rapid Elastic Manufacturing based on SaaS and Cloud model

The overall concept of MANTIS is to provide a proactive maintenance service platform architecture based on Cyber Physical Systems that allows to estimate future performance, to predict and prevent imminent failures and to schedule proactive maintenance. Maintenance is no longer a necessary evil that costs what it costs, but an important function that creates additional value in the business process as well as new business models with a stronger service orientation. Physical systems (e.g. industrial machines, vehicles, renewable energy assets) and the environment they operate in, are monitored continuously by a broad and diverse range of intelligent sensors, resulting in massive amounts of data that characterise the usage history, operational condition, location, movement and other physical properties of those systems. These systems form part of a larger network of heterogeneous and collaborative systems (e.g. vehicle fleets or photovoltaic and windmill parks) connected via robust communication mechanisms able to operate in challenging environments. MANTIS consists of distributed processing chains that efficiently transform raw data into knowledge while minimising the need for bandwidth. Sophisticated distributed sensing and decision making functions are performed at different levels in a collaborative way, ranging from local nodes to locally optimise performance, bandwidth and maintenance; to cloud-based platforms that integrate information from diverse systems and execute distributed processing and analytics algorithms for global decision making. The research addressed in MANTIS will contribute to companies' assets availability, competitiveness, growth and sustainability. Use cases will be the testing ground for the innovative functionalities of the proactive maintenance service platform architecture and for its future exploitation in the industrial world. Results of MANTIS can be utilised directly in several industry areas and different fields of maintenanance.

Europe is still lacking an efficient systemic multi-level approach that enables a recursive, cost-effective, holistic and integrated application of circular principles to the digital uplifting of factory 4.0 capital investments; addressing issues at product, process, system as well as the entire value-chain levels, integrating best practices from emerging enabling digital technologies and avoid a two speed digital transformation across industries in different sectors. LEVEL-UP will offer a scalable platform covering the overall lifecycle, ranging from the digital twins setup, modernisation actions to diagnose and predict the operation of physical assets, to the refurbishment and remanufacturing activities towards end of life. In-situ repair technologies and the redesign for new upgraded components will be facilitated through virtual simulations for increased performance and lifetime. LEVEL-UP will therefore comprise new hardware and software components interfaced with the current facilities through IoT and data-management platforms, while being orchestrated through eight (8) scalable strategies at component, work-station and shopfloor level. The actions for modernising, upgrading, refurbishing, remanufacturing, and recycling will be structured and formalised into ten (10) special Protocols, linked with an Industrial Digital Thread weaving a seamless digital integration with all actors in the value chain for improved future iterations. LEVEL-UP will be demonstrated in 7 demo sites from different sectors. The impact of LEVEL-UP to the European manufacturing industry, but also the society itself, can be sum-marised in the following (with a horizon of 4 years after project ends): (i) increase of the material and re-source efficiency by 11.5%, (ii) increased reliability by 16% of the equipment in an extended lifetime by 20%, (iii) over 50% increase of the Return on Investment (ROI), (iv) about 810 new jobs created and (v) over 80M EUR ROI for the consortium.

For the purpose of creating digitalisation and automation solutions Arrowhead Tools adresses engineering methodologies and suitable integrated tool chains. With the global aim of substantial reduction of the engineering costs for digitalisation/automation solutions. Thus the Arrowhead Tools vision is: - Engineering processes and tool chains for cost efficient developments of digitalization, connectivity and automation systems solutions in various fields of application For the further and wider commercialisation of automation and digitalisation services and products based on SOA, Arrowhead Framework and similar technologies there is a clear need for engineerings tools that integrates existing automation and digitalisation engineering procedures and tool with SOA based automation/digitalisation technology. For this purpose the Arrowhead Tool’s grand challenges are defined as: - Engineering costs reduction by 40-60% for a wide range of automation/digitalisation solutions. - Tools chains for digitalisation and automation engineering and management, adapted to: 1. existing automation and digitalisation engineering methodologies and tools 2. new IoT and SoS automation and digitalisation engineering and management tools 3. security management tools - Training material and kits for professional engineers The results will create impact on: - Automation and digitalisation solution market - Automation and engineering efficiency and the SSBS market - Automation and digitalisation security - Competence development on engineering of automation and digitalisation solution

LAY2FORM will create a new cost-effective multistage manufacturing platform based on flexible machinery concepts, cognitive automation, inline monitoring and inspection, as well as simulation and modelling, enabling the efficient integration of unconventional technologies (laser and ultrasound) in established composites-based processes, namely tape-laying and hot-forming, to enable the production of multifunctional 3D hybrid parts from thin layered metals and thermoplastic-matrix composites. Framed by an end-to-end engineering approach, LAY2FORM will shorten the design and manufacturing cycle time and improve reliability, presenting a substantial potential to, in the middle term, turn the manufacturing of complex and intricate hybrid composite-metal parts highly cost competitive. The enhanced LAY2FORM manufacturing system will be a system of systems, containing the enabling process modules and digital sub-systems to create a continuous and automated manufacturing chain. Moreover, LAY2FORM will apply an integrated and systemic approach to implement full manufacturing routes and create new value chains, from materials conditioning to materials disassembly, being a robust basis for the efficient production of hybrid lightweight structures. The multidisciplinary approach proposed in LAY2FORM comprises a complex interconnection of leading R&I topics to develop an industrially-feasible and competitive manufacturing platform, compatible with the Industry 4.0 vision.