Development of circular manufacturing processes in the era of Industry 4.0

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The proposed program aims to contribute to the transformation from a linear economy to a more sustainable Circular Economy (CE) by developing novel technologies for re-manufacturing of used materials in products demanding high precision. Research focus is on re-machining ceramic (glass, sapphire) as it has excellent properties (e.g. hard, inert) for modern devices (e.g. used in smartphones), it is difficult to machine and energy-intensive to melt favoring novel methods avoiding re-melting. Humanity faces dramatic challenges, as humanity is exhausting nature's budget progressively each year. At the same time waste is growing exponentially; consumption reduction, reusing and recycling are no longer options but vital for sustainable human activities on earth. The concept of a CE aims to address these issues by closing the material loop across the full supply chain. Yet, emerged already decades ago, significant barriers prevent its full adoption. Major ones being lack of information on the product life cycles and shortage of technologies for re-manufacturing. Further, due to their ever shorter lifecycles and planned obsolescence, high-technology products become rapidly obsolete making reuse by repair not a viable option anymore. The emerging manufacturing paradigm Industry 4.0 - key are smart factories in which flexible manufacturing entities communicate across the supply chain - seems to be an excellent solution. However, academic and industrial R&D on smart factory models mainly focus on data integration, assembly and product tracking. Automated disassembly is emerging in recycle industry, but research on taking advantage of Industry 4.0 technologies to unlock the full potential of circular manufacturing is just starting and few research is conducted on re-manufacturing and smart disassembly and concrete case studies are lacking. This program aims to develop a framework for study on improving performance of CE by integrating it into the Industry 4.0 paradigm and to enable complementary approaches for recycling.  Case studies will be developed on: 1) re-machining for recycling; 2) smart disassembly.  The novelty of the program is the development of novel approaches for re-manufacturing and opening up a new research area on smart disassembly; both key elements for implementing Industry 4.0 technologies in the CE. Canadian manufacturing industry is struggling internationally eroding Canada's economic well-being. According to its Manufacturers board adoption of new technologies and developing skilled advanced manufacturing workforce is key to address this problem. Stringent EU policies on CO2 emission & recycling are further forcing Canadian industry to move towards a CE. The proposed program aims to support Canadian manufacturing industry to implement circular manufacturing approaches by developing novel advanced (re-)manufacturing technologies and to close the skills gap for the manufacturing workforce by training of future engineers.