Fraunhofer IPK, Unibright Partner On Baselining Additive Manufacturing

Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK, which provides system solutions with a strong digital focus for the entire spectrum of industrial tasks, along with Unibright announced a collaboration on ‘baselining’ additive manufacturing.

The two organizations will focus on developing an application in the field of manufacturing technology as part of the Baseline protocol. Together, they will research the potential of the open-source project for firms. To accomplish this, they will develop a demonstrator, which will be later published and utilized for acquiring bilateral and publicly funded projects. The project is set for completion in Q4 2020.

The Berlin-based Fraunhofer IPK handles research and development across the whole process range of the manufacturing industry. This ranges from product development and maintenance of investment goods to production processes, product recycling and the design and management of factory operations. Founded in 1976, Fraunhofer IPK works on innovative concepts for the production of tomorrow, which are then transformed into marketable products with the help of partners. 

Fraunhofer IPK paired with the Baseline “Specifications Steering Committee” in May 2020. Founding member Unibright was set as a partner shortly thereafter. With more than 20 years of experience, Unibright provides a unified framework focusing on bringing blockchain technology and smart contracts to people of all specializations.

The aforementioned demonstrator is based on Hyperledger Fabric and currently available at Fraunhofer IPK. It will be suited to the guidelines of the Baseline Protocol and will eventually include SAP integration. Employees from Fraunhofer IPK, Unibright, and Unibright partner Provide will be involved in the development of the baseline demonstration. 

Fraunhofer IPK will research the potential of the Baseline Protocol for manufacturing companies. As a sequent step, the partners will develop common standards for the use of Baseline in Industry 4.0 and IoT in collaboration with manufacturing firms.