Flanders Make Infrastructure Master Plan 2024-2027 (WP3 & WP5)

Given the strong end-to-end expansion of the Flanders Make strategy both in time, whereby data of
previous and later stages of the product lifecycle become available and actionable, and in space,
whereby data of underlying subsystems or above created systems of systems become available and
actionable (value chain or ecosystem dimension), an extension of the current Flanders Make
infrastructure is required to support research execution, demonstration and validation. Namely, there
is a key need to upgrade Flanders Make infrastructure to support end-to-end scenarios. This means
the capability to generate and interconnect data/models/artefacts from multiple product and
production lifecycle phases. Although, the current Flanders Make infrastructure can generate, to a
certain extent, data/models/artefacts in some product life cycle phase (but not in the use phase under
real operational conditions), it does not allow to run end-to-end scenarios as those
data/models/artefacts are not from the same product. Besides, a full connectivity to the Flanders Make
cloud infrastructure, as well as a data architecture and automated data ingestions pipeline, are
missing. Hence, the first goal of the infrastructure master investments plan is to exploit, connect and
extend existing infrastructure elements at Flanders Make to enable end-to-end scenarios.
From the product point of view, the infrastructure extension should support research on three product
types in scope of the research tracks of the Motion Products cluster: (i) complex motion products that
are representative for dynamic processes; (ii) complex motion products that are representative for
continuous processes; and (iii) motion products with complex fleet coordination. Hence, a second
goal of the infrastructure master investments plan is to support end-to-end scenarios for these three
product types.
From a production point of view, key aspects and challenges to be investigated in the research tracks
of the Production cluster are related to a need for increased flexibility due to the high variability of
products (flexible production). Various production areas are covered, including (dis)assembly and
intralogistics. Hence, the third goal of the infrastructure master investments plan is to support end-toend
scenarios with production phase involving high-mix low- volume production, semi-automated
(dis)-assembly and intralogistics.
This project proposal elaborates the full infrastructure master plan for the coming four years (2025 –
2028 execution) to be financed with the infrastructure budget foreseen in the 2023-2027 Flanders
Make covenant.