LASHARE Workshop on Automation and Standardisation and Preparation of the OpenCall
On September 25th, LASHARE conducted a workshop on automation and standardisation. These two topics have been identified by the LASHARE consortium as the key issues for a successful and sustainable business. Under the headline “Automation of Laser-based Equipment in the manufacturing environment”, more than 40 international experts discussed the impact of automation tasks to their field of activity and approaches they use to cope. Based on examples from the currently conducted Laser-based Equipment Assessments, the session concluded with the resume that interfacing between a supplied laser-based equipment and the manufacturing environment is a repeatedly resource consuming task. Most experts were clear in their vision that more generalised connections in manufacturing equipment would facilitate faster uptake of new technologies.
The discussion fed seamlessly into the second topic on “Standardisation of Laser-based Equipment for current and future applications”. On this long term perspective, a resume was given about the current state of laser relevant standardisation topics which led to a deep discussion whether certain topics are already covered by these activities or if new initiatives would be needed to focus on specific requirements of SME’s in the role of users or suppliers. One request that was repeatedly observed is a standardised fibre connector for the delivery of laser radiation. Like the quasi standard in low power, the SMA905 connector, users and suppliers alike wish to have the possibility to use laser sources independent of the current machine. One says that the replacement by an unused source would save money, the other says that he would like to upgrade a set of machines with new laser sources at increased wall plug efficiency but that the change of fibre and interfaces pulls down the economic viability.
The visitors resumed that the discussion was a good starting point for follow up discussions on other platforms. LASHARE will continue working on these topics at LinkedIn and on the LASHARE website.
At the beginning of 2015, LASHARE will publish an open call for new Laser-based Equipment Assessments (LEAs). The call will employ the same approach as used for the current assessments that is guiding a technology development from being demonstrated at laboratory level to a prototype solution that is being validated in a production like environment. It will address an industrial user and a SME supplier that have jointly aim at developing the equipment. These two will have to team up with one of the LASHARE research and technology development partners to set up a new LEA team. The call will focus on equipment that is used for laser based manufacturing including but not exclusively dealing with beam delivery, work piece handling and process control. The opening of the call will be communicated through Twitter @lashare_eu, the LASHARE web site and the I4MS platform. On this way, LASHARE needs the help of independent experts in the evaluation of the proposals. Interested individuals should register through the web site or apply directly to [email protected].
