IKV to build smart factory

The Institute for Plastics Processing (IKV) in Industry and Craft at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, is to set up a Plastics Innovation Centre (PIC) 4.0 at its site in Aachen Melaten. The 4,200 sq m R&D hub to be built with an investment of EUR19.5 and be completed by 2022.  

Funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), IKV says it is aiming the facility to become a world-leading Industry 4.0 centre for the plastics industry. 

The project will begin with preparatory work to fully interconnect the existing research infrastructure and covering the complete documentation for the building-up of a Smart Factory. The accompanying development of learning and teaching concepts will ensure the transfer of research results into university teaching and industrial practice, and enabling future skilled workers to become qualified in the field of Plastics Industry 4.0, and thus increase the economic strength of the industry of the State of NRW, says IKV. 

Even during the construction phase and then later in the course of the research work, the scientists involved in the PIC 4.0 project will devise solutions on comprehensive process data acquisition and processing along complex value chains in plastics processing. Through digital engineering, the development of the plastic part and the process technology will be simulated virtually with the help of uninterrupted simulation chains, right the way through from the initial specifications for the part to the finished quality. 

In addition, the integrated research infrastructure will also be a testing environment for future developments within the Cluster of Excellence "Internet of Production" of RWTH Aachen University. In this connection, PIC 4.0 offers on the one hand support with specific technical and organisational issues from everyday practice in the plastics industry that are linked with digitised processes. On the other, innovative digitisation technologies and approaches can be tested so that even abstract concepts and reference architectures from industry can be tried out and their potential benefits determined. 

Finally, the construction work for the PIC 4.0 project on the IKV site at Seffenter Weg will help IKV, 70 years after it was founded, to bring all the fields of IKV research together on one site.  

(PRA)

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