From the laboratory to the factory: pilot production lines for an innovative technology-based industry in North Rhine-Westphalia

Maintaining competitiveness in international markets while continuing with research and development (R&D) to bring new products to the market is a major challenge, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. The successful validation of technologies from the lab through to the pilot scale is a key factor. Only the speedy resolution of production problems through “learning by doing at pilot plant scale” leads to a successful run and is very important for a product or service to reach and be accepted by the market. As a result, the regional availability of pilot production lines is of paramount importance in order to quickly bring the pilot run to success.

For this reason, the NanoMikroWerkstoffePhotonik.NRW (NMWP.NRW) Cluster organised the seminar on “Pilot production lines for an innovative industry based on key enabling technologies“, with the support of Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH and the European Pilot Production Network (EPPN). In addition to members of NRW, numerous guests from all over Europe took part in the seminar. The EPPN workshop was mainly addressed to the members of the EPPN network project.

Dr. Jaime Ochoa, business developer of CIDETEC Surface Engineering, took part in the event giving a presentation on the pilot plant capabilities of the three CIDETEC centres: Surface engineering (e-coating plant, in use within the European project Clean Sky2 ECOLAND), Nanomedicine (nano-pharmaceutical manufacturing plant, developed and validated within the framework of the H2020-PILOT NANOPILOT project) and Energy Storage (manufacture of electrodes and battery cells, example of a plant providing services both to customers and participating in numerous European projects).

On the second day of the event, COATEMA opened its R&D centre to anyone interested in order to give a deeper insight into the pilot production lines that it has. During the workshops, all the participants had the opportunity to see the machines in operation and discuss the applicability to their own needs in technical discussions with COATEMA experts.