In our sites in Hasselt and Liège, company managers can now, with the assistance of 40 of our specialists, build and test their own ‘production line of the future’ in realistically recreated industrial environments. It took 12 months to build the pilot factory. Our aim is to put all manufacturing companies in Belgium on the road to the fourth industrial revolution. The launch of our pilot factory took place on 7 November.

Parts produced by additive manufacturing can be found in an increasing number of sectors where quality criteria are extremely strict, such as the aeronautical field and medicine. For the manufacturers producing these parts, command is essential, not only of their production tool parameters, but also of the quality of the raw materials they comprise. Sirris helps those manufacturers to implement robust quality assurance and control systems.

In order to be able to help companies in their transition to an Industry 4.0 production, Sirris decided to set up its own pilot environment of an Industry 4.0 factory: the 4.0 Made Real Pilot Factory. Various innovative technologies will be implemented here and the production can be followed digitally from order to delivery. This thanks to connected machines and IoT.

To produce parts in additive manufacturing (AM) out of metal powders is not a push-and-play technology. Due to the specific thermal history of parts, there are numerous causes of part distortions, even a production crash in the worst cases. Software solutions come in handy here...