Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design TechnologyThe EDCar project aims at linking the Platform MaterialDigital (PMD) with the technological solutions of the Manufacturing-X project family and other Gaia-X-based data ecosystems, with a focus on Catena-X. This link is intended to enable material-focused, cross-company data exchange with the help of sovereign and open data ecosystems, thereby promoting the circular economy in the automotive industry.
EDCar: Automotive End-of-Life Data Exchange for Circular Economy
The project aims to apply solutions from Gaia-X-based data ecosystems, specifically Catena-X, to specific use cases requiring material data, or to expand them with material ontologies from the Platform MaterialDigital (PMD). A key objective of EDCar is to exchange structured information between partners along the supply chain in order to promote the circular economy in the automotive industry.
Specifically, data exchange is addressed in the context of two central use cases, called “speedboats”:
- Speedboat 1: End-of-life assessment of vehicle components
Optimization of dismantling and R strategy selection (reuse, remanufacturing, recycling) - Speedboat 2: Feedback to Design
Vehicle and vehicle component design based on cycle data
As an application-oriented research partner in the field of sustainable product ecosystems, Fraunhofer IPK is taking on the role of co-project manager and contributing its expertise to further developing the decision support system for selecting suitable end-of-life circular strategies (CE Assistant from Catena-X) and the feedback-to-design approach.
The partners
The EDCar consortium is led by Fraunhofer IWM, which acts as an application-oriented research partner in the field of materials science. It is supported by Fraunhofer IPK, which contributes its expertise in the fields of sustainable product ecosystems and intelligent networking.
The OEM perspective is represented by BMW Group, while Schaeffler Technologies AG & Co. KG and Robert Bosch GmbH represent the view of Tier 1 suppliers. BASF SE makes significant contributions as a materials supplier and recycler. The recycling company LRP-Autorecycling Leipzig GmbH and the technology providers light ds GmbH and tec4U-Soloutions GmbH complete the consortium.
In addition, six associated partners (Cofinity-X, Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA), Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), Catena-X Automotive Network e.V., German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), and the Federation of German Steel Recycling and Waste Disposal Companies (BDSV) – Automotive Reassembly Specialist Group (FAR) are also involved in the project.