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Meet our industrial partner Knorr-Bremse

Knorr-Bremse is the global market and technology leader for braking systems and a leading supplier of other rail and commercial vehicle systems. Knorr-Bremse products make a decisive contribution to improving safety and energy efficiency on rail tracks and roads around the world. Some 33,000 employees at over 100 locations in around 30 countries develop and produce innovative solutions and services that meet the highest technical standards. In 2023, Knorr-Bremse’s two divisions together generated global revenues of approximately EUR 7.9 billion. For almost 120 years, the company has been at the cutting edge of its industries, driving innovation in mobility and transportation technologies with a particular edge in connected system solutions. Knorr-Bremse is one of Germany’s most successful industrial companies and benefits directly from the key global megatrends: urbanization, sustainability, digitalization, and mobility.

In addition to „new products” Knorr-Bremse offers remanufactured products for commercial vehicles meeting the function and safety standards of original parts as an ecological and less expensive choice to new service parts. The goal of engaging in scientific research such as the rEUman project is to transport the existing remanufacturing set-up to new products and processes required for a circular business model for components of new generation vehicles.

 

Motivation:

Remanufacturing is highly labor-intensive manual work, which also requires high knowledge as well as physical strength. Integrating future technologies into existing processes can support workers to increase the efficiency and attractiveness of their workplace by also reducing physical load and improve safety.

Not only Knorr-Bremse will take advantage of this project but also the end user will benefit from this approach due to the possibilities to have better price and quality. This implies to increase the remanufacturing product consumption.

The goal is to transfer existing knowledge into failure diagnostic of cores as well as automatization of disassembly and reconditioning process. The new approach would enable a 1:1 repair of products and ensure a longer individual use-phase of a vehicle. An increase of regeneration rate leads to an increase of machine and worker utilization and a decrease in the use of new material.

 

Role:

Knorr-Bremse contributes to the rEUman project with three demo cases in the field of electronic repair. These demo cases serve to validate technological solutions out of electronic rework and repair. Furthermore, requirements for the technological solutions will be defined by Knorr-Bremse and its partner Cojali. The technological solutions developed within the consortium will be validated at Knorr-Bremse remanufacturing and repair facility in Liberec.

Contact

Coordinator

Politecnico di Milano

POLIMI

prof. Marcello Colledani

Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology and Production Systems Lab

C&D Manager

META Circularity

Jurij Giacomelli

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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement 101138930.

Funded by the European Union

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