Projects and partnerships

REMODEL (Robotic technologies for the manipulation of complex deformable linear objects) project is a four-year project funded by the European Commission in the Horizon 2020 programme. The project consortium involves eleven partners.
REMODEL will enable new production environments, where the manufacturing of complex products composed of multiple wires and cables by means of robots is not only possible, but fully integrated with the product design chain. Wires, cables, wiring harnesses, laces and flexible tubes have a transversal application in many manufacturing processes, where these technologies could lean the scale for a total automation, decreasing the production costs and improving the worker conditions.
REMODEL will bring new opportunities to human-intensive labor manufacturing processes like the one dealing with cables and wires, where the routing and fitting tasks are calling for advanced handling techniques.
The REMODEL robotic ability will impact several production scenarios in which human work is widely adopted due to the complexity in the objects, materials and manipulation tasks, characterized unpredictable initial configuration as well as large deformability and plasticity.
To proof the effectiveness of the REMODEL outcomes, four industrial manufacturing use cases provided by the industrial partners and covering five different domains, i.e. the production and assembly of wiring harnesses in the automotive and the aerospace field, the switchgear wiring and the manufacturing of medical consumables, will be developed.

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Enki is honored to participate to the European project ForZDM (Zero Defect Manufacturing). ZDM is the new paradigm that aims at going beyond traditional six-sigma approach for quality and efficiency. It requires an innovative management of defects, control methods, development of new technologies for in-line inspections that are not available at the moment in the market.

The project started in October 2016 and will last for 48 months.

The aim of the project is to develop tools that can support the implementation of the ZDM paradigm in production and industrial design.

This model will be implemented and validated in 3 different industrial use cases, among these Enki will be the demonstrator for the manufacturing of medical devices and in particular microtubes and catheter.

Important companies and universities from various areas, aeronautics, railway industry, mechanics, software industry.

Here after the list of the partners involved in the project:

• Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, S.A.Spain
• POLITECNICO DI MILANO, Italy
• ENKI SRL, Italy
• ABF-INDUSTRIELLE AUTOMATION GMBH, Austria
• FUNDACION TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION, Spain
• IDEKO S COOP, Spain
• MONTRONIX GMBH, Germany
• Marposs SpA, Italy
• ENGINSOFT NORDIC AB, Sweden
• NXTCONTROL GMBH, Austria
• UNIVERSITAET STUTTGART, Germany
• MASMEC SPA, Italy

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OBJECTIVES
The project aims at developing an innovative Quality Control System that will drastically change the current concept of End-of-Line quality control, going beyond currently established methodologies such as Six-sigma and SPC.

The model will be tested in three distinct fields that are of strategic relevance for Europe:
– Sustainable mobility: production of electrical engines (Bosch)
– Green energy: windmill-biulding industry (Gamesa SA)
– Customized medicine industry: production of unique customized micro-intravascular catheters (ENKI)

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ABSTRACT
This project aims at developing an innovative Quality Control System that will drastically change the current concept of End Of Line quality control, going beyond currently established methodologies such as Six-sigma and SPC. It will prevent the generation of defects within the process at single stage and the propagation of defects between processes at multi-stage system level. This Quality Control System will be proactive, offering three different solution strategies to avoid End of Line defects:
– elimination of the predicted defect through adjustment of process characteristics by proactively intervening on the inputs to the process (process parameters, etc.),
– on-line reworking of the product in order to eliminate the defect,
– on-line workpiece repair through defect elimination at consecutive process stages.

Technological developments will be based on the design and development of new hardware technologies, techniques and software solutions that in turn are based on real-time multi-data gathering by the integration of new sensor and inspection equipment, development of intelligent actuators and the of new monitoring and prognosis knowledge-based models. To develop a universal system able to be integrated into different production processes, its feasibility will be demonstrated in machining and assembly processes at both macro and micro product scales.

The integration of the in-process Quality Control system into the production chain will minimize the amount of defective part production, reaching process capability values of more than 2.0 in mass production, and equivalent reduction of defect amount in small-lots and customized product manufacturing.

Application domains will include emerging strategic European sectors such as the production of electrical engines for sustainable mobility, large-part manufacturing for the wind power sector and the production of customized micro-intravascular catheters as high value medical products for the aging society.

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RESULTS
The project is still open
Enki projected and developed:

Intelligent head and inserts obtained by micro mechanical machining systems able to manage tube walls thickness not owing to mechanical stress but by temperature effects

Black Spot Control in the production line , with three cameras.

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OBJECTIVES
The project aims at enhancing knowledge of the materials used in the medical field :
– identifying the parameters that influence the production of microtubes
– identifying new and innovative materials that meet the emerging needs of the market
– implementing new control systems and production management

RESULTS
The following was achieved thanks to the project :
– identifying the parameters of the materials in the medical field and their relationship with the corresponding production parameters;
– establishing a laboratory to distinguish these parameters in the various operational phases ;
– identifying and testing various innovative materials including a conductive material;
– implementing the various control systems and production management including the production of a fourth extruder enabling:

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  – the production of a square pipe -layer
  
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  – the production of a multi-layer tube with a conductive material
  
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  – the production of a colored triple layer tube with inserts ( lines 4-8 )
  
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OBJECTIVES

The project aims at investigating the possibility of extruding multilumen tube powders feedstock and produce metal multilumen micro extrusions which can transmit more fluid, thus ensuring separation in a single product.

RESULTS

The project allowed to:

• Project and develop a new machine capable of running extrusion and molding in MIM feedstock or thermoplastic and capable of molding silicon.
• Development of tube extruded in MIM (mono, bi and four layers) using different materials available on the market.

Current and potential applications:

The multilumen stainless steel tube developed with an extrusion process is seamless and can be used in many different areas, from mechanical components to fluid dynamics to medical devices to distribute energy and drugs.