Advancing manufacturing paves way for future of industry in Europe

The Report of the Task Force on Advanced Manufacturing for Clean Production has been published, presenting an overview of measures taken recently to foster the adoption of advanced manufacturing by European industry in order to increase competitiveness.

It was published on the eve of the European Council’s discussion of the Commission plan (‘For a European Industrial Renaissance’) to increase the contribution European industry makes to EU GDP from the current level of 15% to that of 20% by 2020.

In 2012, the manufacturing sector in the EU directly employed 30 million people and provided twice as many jobs indirectly. Manufactured goods amounted to over 80% of total EU exports and manufacturing accounted for 80% of private research and development expenditure.

Manufacturing currently faces important drivers of change such as the increasing scarcity of resources, the availability of big data and mass customisation, which has the potential to modify the global industrial landscape. Anticipating and reacting to these trends will be a major challenge for the European manufacturing sector.

Advanced manufacturing includes all production solutions that can improve the productivity (production speed, operating precision, and energy and materials consumption) and/or to improve waste and pollution of manufacturing production both in traditional sectors and emerging industries.

These technologies are of cross-cutting nature, providing a crucial input for process innovation in any manufacturing sector. The European Commission said their uptake in production processes would increase the competitiveness of the EU’s manufacturing industry.

Horizon 2020 will offer funding opportunities for research and innovation in advanced manufacturing. Public private partnerships have been established such as Factories of the Future with an indicative budget of €1.15bn and SPIRE (Sustainable Process Industry through Resource Efficiency) with a €0.9bn budget. New public private partnerships in the area of robotics and photonics will also play a role for advanced manufacturing technologies.

In addition, technology transfer and demonstration activities will bring research results quicker to the European market.