Recycling 4.0

Initial situation:

The increasing digitalization of industrial processes means that large volumes of data can be obtained along supply chains. The potential to link the data obtained with innovative evaluation, forecasting and planning methods and tools is often mentioned in the context of the term "Industry 4.0". There is currently still a practical need for action in the recovery and recycling of products. Recycling faces the challenge of having to recycle ever more complex products. Efficient recycling is becoming increasingly important as resource prices rise in the long term, resource deposits decrease and society becomes more environmentally aware. Digitalization, the effective provision of information and the linking of the various players in closed-loop supply chains can help to tackle this problem.

Objective:

In the context of this joint project, with a focus on the recycling of innovative vehicle systems such as in electromobility, which will be particularly dependent on securing raw material returns from waste in the future, existing recycling problems are therefore to be analyzed, solutions developed and prototypical concepts derived from them implemented. The aim is to enable "Recycling 4.0" through a targeted and coordinated exchange of information between the partners in a closed-loop supply chain based on Industry 4.0 technologies and methods to achieve an advanced circular economy.

The core objective of this innovation network is to develop technologies and methods for the digitalization of processes and information acquisition and processing along the closed-loop supply chain and to promote the use of the data obtained and developed in the production and recycling processes.

Approach:

The central instance of the envisaged Advanced Circular Economy will be an information marketplace on which the players in the closed-loop supply chains can trade information with each other. The focus of the Institute for Software and Systems Engineering is the dynamic integration of new data sources into the information marketplace. In addition, it deals with the question of information quality, how this can be measured and assessed without the data set or information having to be shared beforehand.