Enabling the circular economy and saving resources in SMEs

The centerpiece of DFKI's presence at the trade fair is the joint stand with SmartFactory-KL in Hall 8, Stand D18. The Green-AI Hub Mittelstand, an initiative of the Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUV), is presenting one of its five mobile demonstrators there.  These were developed by DFKI to be brought to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) throughout Germany in an e-transporter, the Green-AI Hub Mobil, and to introduce SMEs to the topic of resource efficiency.

The demonstrator at the trade fair illustrates how used parts can be reused in production with the help of visual quality control by AI, in the sense of a circular economy. This can not only save material, energy and CO2, but also costs, says DFKI researcher Teresa Petzsche: "According to the Federal Statistical Office, the largest cost block in the manufacturing industry, around 43%, is accounted for annually by operational expenditure on material and energy consumption."

At the stand, the components of a small, used model truck are scanned by a camera and AI is used to decide whether they are reusable or need to be recycled. An individual digital product passport is displayed on a screen for each part, which contains information about the current condition of the part, its use to date and its carbon footprint, among other things. This is kept throughout the entire life cycle of a product.
 
The Re-Use Island is embedded in the SmartFactory demonstrator ecosystem. With several production islands, visitors to the trade fair will be introduced to the idea of shared production. Shared production involves the automated organization of production across factory, site, and company boundaries, depending on the capacity of suppliers and partners, in order to process orders efficiently.

The used part can be placed in a shared data room by a re-use dealer. An offer is automatically generated based on the product passport, which can be accessed via an Asset Administration Shell (standardized file format).
 
This allows a visitor who wants to configure a new truck on a monitor at another station to choose between a used and a new part. They can see the cost and CO2 savings.