Experts from 10 European countries met on 22 and 23 March for two meetings organised under EDA’s “Incubation Forum for Circular Economy in European Defence” (IF CEED) in Gijón (Spain) to discuss how to improve Additive Manufacturing (AM) - commonly known as 3D-printing - and Spare Parts Management in defence applications and build collaborative actions in these areas.
Within IF CEED, incubation groups, called project circles, aim at addressing both technological and organisational aspects in nine areas. Two of these areas, Circular Additive Manufacturing and Spare Parts Management convened in two sessions, hosted on the premises of Fundación IDONIAL (Gijón, Spain), to exchange views on the scope of future projects contributing to the objectives of circular economy.
Participants from Ministries of Defence, industry, research-and-technology organisations, as well as academia, exchanged on topics such as design optimisation, recycling and use of secondary materials, decentralised manufacturing, qualification protocols and common pooling of spare parts.
In-person discussions allowed concrete progress in the refinement of project proposals incubated in IF CEED, combining technological and organisational aspects to contribute improving the Armed Forces’ environmental impact and operational efficiency.
Indeed, the project ideas target a more efficient use of resources, by promoting the effective re-use of spare parts, repair, use of recycled materials and optimised manufacturing, while ensuring that military requirements are fulfilled. In this regard, presentations were given on supply chain aspects, from logistic systems to security of information and standardisation.
The experts also discussed how IF CEED projects could integrate and improve methodologies and tools for environmental evaluation. In further steps, the content of the project ideas will be detailed in view of their follow-up implementation.
More info:
EDA’s IF CEED website