Footwear plays its part in EU Internet of Things project
A European project called Reclaim, part of the wider Horizon 2020 programme, which aims to restore and update manufacturing technology in five industrial sectors (including footwear), has just completed its first year.
According to CTCR, the specialist footwear technology centre for manufacturers in La Rioja in northern Spain, which is one of the Reclaim H2020 partners, the first phase of the project has focused on finding out exactly what machinery is in place in European shoe factories, how well it performs and what the most frequent faults are.
This is to help meet Reclaim’s aim of “harnessing digital analytics, the Internet of Things and circular economy strategies to improve predictive maintenance and upgrades” to extend machinery lifetime and improve productivity and performance.
Sensors have gone into machines in pilot plants and CTCR has said it will use the data to draw up a predictive model that will detect when equipment is on the point of failing, allowing shoe producers to take action to prevent unplanned downtime.
From this, the Rioja-based research organisation has said it will build ‘digital twins’ of footwear production set-ups. Not only would this allow manufacturers to fix faults in record time, CTCR says it would also allow for a quick and affordable assessment of future business scenarios and new opportunities.
