ProSEco. Helping manufacturers design meta products.

THINKLab - ProSEco

Web connected sensor technology is creating a world in which everything from products to people, spaces and services are connected and operating as a living network.

Manufacturers across all sectors are seeing this as an opportunity to add new, highly personalised product-services (meta products) to existing products. These meta products often offer environmental benefits and create new business models or maintain competitive advantage.

So a car manufacturer might use in-car sensors to understand your driving habits and offer you personalised support to optimise your car’s energy use. Or a household appliance manufacturer might wish to provide remote, condition based maintenance of your washing machine or dryer. Or a machine tool builder may seek to identify a customer’s specific usage patterns, allowing them to personalise product-services that could help that customer reduce the environmental impact of their products.

 The ProSEco project sought to provide industry with a new methodology and comprehensive ICT solution enabling the collaborative design of product-services and their associated production processes.

Tested across four industrial applications, it provided the project platform and featured a set of new engineering tools such as simulation and configuration designed to support collaborative work on new product-services and enhance existing tools for product/process design.

Using a cloud manufacturing approach it allowed all stakeholders within a manufacturing process to work together to offer new, eco-innovative meta products that strengthened their competitiveness in the global market.