DREAM Chair with SIGMA-Clermont (Clermont-Ferrand)
On 19 June 2020, in partnership with SIGMA-Clermont, ESTIA launched the DREAM Chair (Develop Responsive Emergent and Additive Manufacturing process.
This chair is the result of the "Factory of the Future" Industrial Chair residency (2018-2020)
In 2018, Estia and Sigma Clermont created a joint industrial chair to combine their skills and play a significant role in the Factory of the Future. In fact, both establishments claim an activity at the heart of the Factory of the Future and in particular for the robotisation and industrialisation of new manufacturing processes. The institutions are pooling the academic expertise of their research teams, the technical skills of their engineering teams and the experimental resources of their laboratories, to cover the entire TRL on the following issues:
- The development of new high added-value polymer materials. - The optimisation of multi-process manufacturing processes, interacting with a decision-making process in an industrial production situation in specific workshops.
- The creation of agile robotic cells, capable of implementing new processes, interacting in real time with a digital simulation environment, and interacting with the development of specific sensors.
- The deployment of digital models of processes and procedures in the workshops,
- interacting with augmented reality tools,
- The deployment of a "factory of the future" environment in an industrial environment, interacting with the appropriation of the missions of operators and management in an environment where responsibilities and information are distributed.
This industrial chair aims to become the connecting node of an international university network in the field of the industry of the future in interaction with the industrial world. The Chair will approach the Factory of the Future from the point of view of integration and the creation of synergies between disciplines. The technological, practical and human aspects will be addressed simultaneously. The Chair welcomes residents, who are internationally recognised senior professors and researchers in the field of the Factory of the Future. They bring significant expertise in their field and express a need for research that interacts with other disciplines as part of their research activities. The residents contribute their scientific expertise in response to the questions posed by the doctoral students and help them to develop their scientific thinking. The research work is thus built up through a dynamic exchange between expert and learner and between learner and learner. The project becomes a success when the synergy generated produces original avenues of research. A team of doctoral students takes part in a research platform that works in synergy, coached by the residents. The doctoral students draw on Estia's scientific resources to develop interactive research that meets industrial expectations. This team is strengthened by the PhD students and engineers from the platforms who are involved in the developments needed to achieve TRL and who will participate in industrial collaborations.