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Product Lifecycle Management and Information Tracking using Smart Embedded Systems

Project description


Products and Services engineering 2010
Smart car parts save money and the environment

A car that can tell mechanics what is wrong with it would improve road safety and reduce repair and maintenance costs for drivers. Such a vehicle is one application of a new kind of product life-cycle management (PLM) system.

Closed-loop PLM, as it is known, allows a product – be it a car, a locomotive or a piece of factory equipment – to be monitored throughout its life.

To achieve that goal, European researchers involved in the PROMISE project are using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags embedded in product components to transmit information wirelessly at short range.

The RFID tags, a type of product-embedded information device, are similar to the electronic labels commonly used by stores to protect merchandise from theft but can contain a lot more information about the product.

A better, cheaper car service

In one demonstration of the technology, the PROMISE team embedded the tags into a specially adapted Fiat car and used them to transmit information to mechanics about the wear and tear on different parts.

To gather the data, the vehicle simply needs to be driven over a one-metre square servicing pad fitted with an ultra-high frequency reader and four antennae. The pad compares part numbers to manufacturer information stored in a database.

Mechanics can then instantly determine which parts are nearing the end of their useful life and which may need to be replaced.

This information helps prevent them from overlooking the replacement of old parts during servicing, but it can also stop them from replacing parts unnecessarily. The technology can therefore help reduce maintenance costs. Used in a car owner’s garage, the system would help ensure their car remains in tip-top condition.

Keeping good parts from the scrap heap

In addition, when the car is to be scrapped, the RFID tags would help prevent unnecessary waste by allowing mechanics to identify parts that are still in a usable condition and which could either be kept as spares or refurbished for use on another vehicle.

Caterpillar, a project partner, is already using refurbished and remanufactured parts in its earth-moving vehicles. The ability to do so allows the company to use less raw materials, energy and resources in their production, increasing the company’s profit margins.

Helping recycling and consumers

More significantly, the use of RFID tags to transmit life-cycle information will contribute to the European Union’s goal of ensuring that 96% of a car’s weight is recyclable by 2015.

For businesses and consumers, closed-loop PLM also offers other advantages. By monitoring a product when it leaves the factory, through its useful life until it is scrapped or recycled, companies will have more information at hand with which to improve the design and satisfy consumer needs.

PROMISE will develop appropriate technology, including product lifecycle models, Product Embedded Information Devices and software components and tools for decision making based on data gathered through a product lifecycle. This is done to enable and exploit the seamless flow, tracing and updating of product information, after its delivery to the customer and up to its final destiny and back to the designer and producer. The breakthrough contribution of PROMISE, in the long term, is to allow information flow management to go beyond the customer, to close the product lifecycle information loops, and to enable the seamless e-Transformation of Product Lifecycle Information to Knowledge. PROMISE integrates research activities to realise a prototype PROMISE PLM System, industrial applications covering 11 demonstrators in the Automotive, Railway, Heavy Load Vehicle, EEE and White goods sectors, standardisation, business development issues and training activities. PROMISE offers to the Product Lifecycle stakeholders: to create value by transforming information to knowledge at all phases of the product lifecycle and thus improve product and service quality, efficiency and sustainability. The main objectives are to develop new 1. closed-loop life cycle information flow models for BOL, MOL and EOL 2. PLM system and IT infrastructure exploiting the capabilities of smart product embedded information devices 3. standards to allow the technologies and associated tools to be developed by the PROMISE project to be accepted by the market. 4. working and business models appropriate for the use and exploitation of the new technologies and tools to be developed by all actors involved in a product lifecycle. The PROMISE consortium consists of 22 partners from 9 European countries. In addition it integrates research activities performed at private and EU-projects, as well as international corporations (IMS) involving 5 regions (EU, Switzerland, Japan, USA, Australia.

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Call for proposal

FP6-2002-IST-NMP-1
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

IP - Integrated Project

Coordinator

STIFTELSEN SINTEF
EU contribution
€ 935 225,00
Address
STRINDVEIEN 4
7034 Trondheim
Norway

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Norge Trøndelag Trøndelag
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Participants (24)

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Last update: 1 April 2017

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Permalink: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/507100

European Union, 2024