Excellence in production research (XPRES)

XPRES will establish an internationally competitive platform for production research to meet future challenges of world leading Swedish industry. By complementing each others scientific competences and roles, this unique research and education consortium covers the fields of production processes, production systems and digital engineering. The industrial partners represent world leading Swedish manufacturing industries including heavy vehicle, machine, component manufacturing and aircraft.

Vision

The vision of XPRES is to be an excellent and internationally recognized research and education environment within advanced production, being among the top five in Europe. This environment creates lasting value for Swedish world-leading manufacturing industry and society.

Mission

The mission of the Initiative for excellence in production research is to conduct production research that:

• is of the highest international quality,
• contributes towards fulfilling major needs and solving important problems in society,
• contributes to areas with connection to the Swedish industrial sector.

Objectives

This joint initiative to develop an excellent research and education environment within advanced production has four specific objectives:

• Create a base for excellence in production research enabling radical steps forward and renewal within production research as well as strengthening strong research areas at KTH, MDH and Swerea.
• Enable enhanced knowledge co-production between academia, research institutes and industry through the application of new, enhanced processes and infrastructures.
• Provide an efficient education and research environment within the manufacturing engineering area. Greater focus and concentration of research activities between the partners will lead to the ability to provide width and depth in research education, a long-term coordination of education curricula, and an increased exchange between the partners within basic education.
• Build a base for increased internationalization of the research activities within manufacturing engineering by sharing links, results, and synergies within selected areas such that the international community may be strengthened with a structured international exchange of students and researchers.

Strategy

In order to fulfil the vision of being ‘an excellent research and education environment within advanced production, thus creating lasting value for Swedish world-leading manufacturing industry and society’ and fulfilling the objectives, the XPRES initiative relies on a set of four actions:

• Forming a strong and complementary consortium.
• Creating cross-organizational and cross-disciplinary focus areas.
• Developing an enabling organizational structure.
• Building a structure for international collaboration.

Research

XPRES relies on a set of concurrent high-quality research activities from the partners as well as strong industrial collaboration structures. Focus and concentration of research activities between the partners will provide the ability to implement width and depth in a common XPRES graduate school, as well as a long-term coordination of education curricula and increased exchange between the partners within undergraduate education. Additionally, XPRES sets a base for increased internationalization of the research activities within manufacturing engineering by way of a shared international community. This will enhance existing links and lead to a structured international exchange of students and researchers. XPRES also finds a new framework for the interaction between the academia, represented by KTH, MDH and Swerea and the industrial partners. Mobility between the parties has a central role.

Two integrated facilities are created within XPRES to provide scenes for intense cooperation between the partners:

• The ‘XPRES real lab’ provides new flexible/adaptive manufacturing lab facilities. This lab will allow manufacturing equipment to be installed for projects with a limited duration.
• The ‘XPRES virtual lab’ provides new digital factory and augmented reality facilities. This lab will allow concepts to be tested virtually and provides an information exchange platform. Research results will be documented and easily accessible in web guides and authoring tools in production engineering.

The company involvement within XPRES will be intensive. The companies and research institutes are represented in the XPRES management as well as in the three research focus areas.

Management

Bengt Lindberg, professor
Principal investigator
KTH Industriell teknik och management

Thomas Lundholm, tekn dr
Manager
KTH Industriell produktion

Gunilla Sivard, tekn dr
Virtual lab manager
KTH Industriell produktion

Arne Melander, professor
FA1 manager
Swerea KIMAB AB

Magnus Wiktorsson, docent, universitetslektor
FA2 manager
Mälardalens högskola

Mauro Onori, professor
FA3 manager
KTH Industriell produktion

Financiers

XPRES is funded by the Swedish government through VINNOVA.