Despite the multiple advantages of products remanufacturing, being widely recognised as an effective means for transitioning to a more circular economy, there is still need for improved research and experimental observations, to improve traceability and reliability of the final products from end-users’ perspectives, as well as enhanced impacts monitoring. The primary R3-Mydas objective is to develop a multi-actor framework, integrating innovative digital technologies (ML for process and quality control, marketplace, graph models for defects detection, digital twins), advanced mechatronics (AM, laser-cladding, automated disassembly/reassembly) and newly developed approaches from SSH (extended TAM/UTAUT models, ethics and legal framework), for functionally, environmentally and economically sustainable circular value chains for remanufacturing of energy goods at the factory level (Oil&Gas crankshafts – demo 1, E-vehicles batteries – demo 2, Wind turbines gearboxes – demo 3). R3-Mydas will deliver unprecedented impacts throughout the targeted value chains, as follows: up to 60% time reduction in programming for remanufacturing; up to 20% increased product quality; up to 30% rework reduction [Demo 1]; up to 30% improved detection of tiny deviations from normal behaviour; up to 50% faster anomaly localization; up to 30% increase the number of different modality data streams handled; up to 20% faster fusion process [Demo 2]; up to 99% reusage rate; -90% prevention rate; -75% lead time; up to 85% raw material savings potential [Demo 3]. The Project will deliver a marketplace associating to each remanufactured product or services/component for remanufacturing a Digital Passport-like set of information, ensuring full traceability. Finally, a dedicated training programme will be designed and delivered by EITM, targeting the Project remanufacturing value chains (100+ training hours and 100+ diverse stakeholders engaged during the Project).

The continuous growth of laser-based manufacturing processes has allowed the introduction of many new applications in different industries during last years. This advance has brought many advantages in terms of parts complexity, required resources (human and material) or environmental impact. On the other side, parts manufacturing through laser based processes require specific designs/adjustments for each one of the applications (this delays considerably the time-to-market of new products). This means that a more holistic approach will be desirable in the following years in order to meet rapidly-changing market requirements. In addition to this fact, productivity will always be a great concern for European companies. The aspects that restrict process productivity are linked to non-productive intervals, such as scrap generation, defective parts manufacturing or pores/cracks appearance that make parts useless. In this environment, the use of easily controllable manufacturing processes is mandatory in order to increase process productivity and reduce the time-to-market while keeping or increasing final quality of manufactured products. Laser processes have the main advantage of being controllable processes, additionally to being fast and accurate processes, allowing precise actuation over the equipment parameters that directly can be translated in a change of the physical parameters, those that affect to the final quality of manufactured parts. Both laser welding and cladding rely on the same physical process of material melting. Therefore, all of them have common problems. In order to overcome undesirable situations, new strategies need to be developed which will be based on two different main branches, all of them under zero defects manufacturing philosophy: 1) Monitoring, and 2) NDT solutions. The objective of COMBILASER is the combination of these two worlds through a self-learning system.