RightWeight

Challenges

The automotive and aerospace sectors are well established in (Northwestern) Europe where they employ about 13.5M people. They are key to Europe's competitiveness, leading innovation efforts in different areas (31% of EU R&D share). But, at the same time, they are responsible for the largest share of CO2 emissions, nearly 25% in EU. To meet the green deal, the EU has set ambitious environmental targets: < 95 gCO2/km (for automotive) and < 30 g CO2/pax/km for aerospace.

To meet these targets, companies are looking to use lighter materials. However, in both value chains, part suppliers in Northwestern Europe struggle with sector specific challenges that hamper their competitiveness:

  • Aeropspace components need to be produced at lower costs and higher speeds as aircraft sales are under pressure from new competitors in e.g., Brazil, China.
  • Automotive components need to be lighter given the pressure of increasingly stringent environmental regulations: e.g., reducing vehicle weight by 100 kg saves about 8.5 g CO2/100 km.

SMEs represent about 99% in both value chains, they face the following 3 main challenges:

  1. Car/aircraft manufacturers fail to meet environmental regulations because solutions don’t strike the right balance between cost/environmental performance. On one side, the automotive sector excels in advanced manufacturing technologies with competitive costs for mass production; where on the other side we see that the aerospace industry excels in the use of advanced materials with enhanced lightweight performance.
  2. The lack of intersectoral connection between suppliers and end-users resulting in underexploited synergies. SMEs from one sector are not fully aware of the business opportunities in the other, hence creating a large untapped transferability potential.
  3. Supplier SMEs cannot provide innovative solutions that meet car/aircraft manufacturers’ needs: strong performing solutions are too expensive, while those that affordable cannot meet the targeted weight reduction.

Project goals

RIGHTWEIGHT aims at increasing the competitiveness of automotive & aerospace SMEs, by delivering new solutions that meet environmental and affordability targets. Cross-sectoral collaboration and dedicated support will help them to increase their capacity to co-develop solutions that met car/aircraft manufacturers’ needs. RIGHTWEIGHT will set up a transnational ecosystem connecting 7 partner regions with complementary expertise. At the end of the project:

  • 50 SMEs will develop their innovative products to reach TRL7.
  • 100 SMEs will improve their services through trainings.

Economic value

  • In the short term  the new products created by the cross-sectorial collaborations and training programs will generate €2M in turnover and 50 jobs.
  •  In the long term (10 years), more SME will join the ecosystem (850 expected). This will lead to 250 new jobs and an overall €60M additional turnover generated through innovations & training.

Contact

For more information about RightWeight, please visit the project website or contact Gabriel Abedrabbo.