Project Summary

Applying lightweight solutions is the most efficient approach to make transport greener (Lucintel’18; McK’12). However, SME suppliers of auto and aero parts in NWE encounter severe challenges to define optimal lightweighting: auto struggles to integrate the most advanced materials; aero, to reach acceptable costs and production speeds. Each sector uniquely excels in specific areas: e.g. auto leads automated mass manufacturing and aero, materials performance. To effectively adopt feasible lightweight solutions, more affordable and environmentally-friendly  innovations must be co-developed across the value chain: market-pull from demand side will stimulate a competitiveness increase of supplier SMEs, while contributing to reduce overall CO2 transport emissions.
RIGHTWEIGHT will support 50+ manufacturing SMEs in auto & aero value chains to deliver components meeting car/aircraft makers’ needs. 20+ novel lightweight products will be incubated to TRL7 by 2022, improving environmental performance and greater value-for-money via an open cross-sectorial process combining educational activities and transnational thematic competitions in 5 cross-cutting areas within lightweight: 1) materials supply & development, 2) characterization & modelling, 3) design & smart functions, 4) manufacturing & assembly and 5) recycling. Partners will provide dedicated training in specialised complementary fieldlabs.
5 countries with auto and aero relevance (RIS3) will be involved, leveraging leader-follower synergies: FR (aero), DE and BE (auto), NL (both) and IT (strong in both). 50+ end-users (large demand actors) from 7 regions are already committed (assoc. part.).
RIGHTWEIGHT will pioneer to stimulate cross-sectorial transfer between actors now operating in one value chain with dedicated transnational sessions (also inviting peer projects) and a novel database of success cases. We will anchor €10M turnover & 100 jobs in NWE, while generating €2M turnover & 50 jobs by 2022.