Increasing regulatory requirements, dwindling resources and growing expectations for sustainable business practices pose major challenges for companies. The circular economy offers a solution: it extends product life cycles, closes material loops and reduces dependence on primary raw materials. At the same time, the transformation to circular business models is complex and requires new technological and organisational approaches.
This is precisely where the GoProZero project comes in. The aim is to enable companies to systematically develop and implement circular and resource-efficient products. To this end, practical methods, processes and IT tools are being developed that support sustainable product development and can be integrated into existing engineering structures.
Digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital twins take centre stage. They make it possible to take a holistic view of product lifecycles, analyse usage data and make well-founded decisions at an early stage of development. In this way, service lives can be extended, maintenance strategies optimised and potential for reprocessing and recycling identified at an early stage.
The approaches developed are being trialled and validated in six lighthouse projects in close cooperation with industrial partners such as CLAAS, DENIOS, GEA Group, HARTING, WAGO and Weidmüller. Various use cases are being addressed: from circular business models such as the reconditioning and modernisation of machines to the data-based optimisation of resource use and energy efficiency in the product usage phase.
The close integration of research and industrial practice results in scalable solutions that have an impact beyond the project partners. GoProZero thus shows how digitalisation can be used in a targeted manner to anchor sustainability in engineering and implement the transformation to a circular economy in concrete terms.
More information about the project can be found here.
