Breakthroughs will be created in the developing of

	reliable high volume µ-manufacturing technologies based on precision glass moulding,
	radical new systems for automated handling and alignment of µ-components
	new standards for µ-production planning, cost estimation and ‘design for manufacturing’.

Background and objectives
High potential applications for µ-systems related products are to be found in the diverse automotive, biotech, medical and consumer applications and are current drivers of future economic growth for European industry. Increasing people’s desire in mobility, communication and health forces the addressed sectors to realize product functionalities and performance. Main enablers are µ-optic as well as µ-fluidic components based on advanced glass material, due to its superior properties. If these components can be produced in high volumes to acceptable costs Europe faces an enormous economic potential, for example in optical systems integration for cars or mobile phones. However, despite of the economic potential the condition for industrial scale µ-production of such systems does not yet exist,– for two reasons:

1. The µ-production technologies and production chains are often complex, cost-intensive. Specific single solutions are only matching for one product/component and usually include time consuming, manifold manual handling operations. Existing technologies for manufacturing µ-components in glass (precision tooling and glass moulding) are not yet fully developed, thus reliability is insufficient to be adapted in high volume production.
   
2. There are no secured procedures for early stage production planning and target costing to optimise the product development process. This is mainly due to the fact that the identification and integration of standards for µ-production and µ-product as basis for simultaneous µ-engineering is not yet established.

Production4µ aims at enabling high precision manufacturing process chains to respond flexibly, cost-effectively and lot size adjusted to the need of micro system suppliers for the production of complex shaped and functional µ-parts; here: of µ-glass parts and for the use in optical and micro-fluidic systems. Objective of the Production4µ project is the investigation and application/verification of radical new production concepts, utilising new methodologies and standards as well as radical new manufacturing processes and automation technologies to transfer lab-scale prototype production into industrial scale production of µ-glass-components. Due to the high transferability of the developed µ-automation systems, standards and methodologies, the Production4µ will revolutionise future µ-production in general.

Project approach
Compared to former research activities in this field, Production4µ follows a radical new integrated approach, by holistically considering all relevant disciplines of µ-production starting from µ-system design to the continuous optimisation of the µ-production. Breakthroughs will be created in the developing of

	reliable high volume µ-manufacturing technologies based on precision glass moulding,
	radical new systems for automated handling and alignment of µ-components
	new standards for µ-production planning, cost estimation and ‘design for manufacturing’.

Research and related deliverables in all three disciplines will be based on industry requirements and will be tested and validated for three, most relevant and representative industrial applications:

	60% shorter throughput time (lower non-productive time, shorter manufacturing time)
	60% shorter time to market (shorter designing time and setting up time)
	50% reduction in product costs (lower manufacturing costs, lower rejected part volume)

	Automotive sector: 20 Mio units/a in today – 160 Mio units/a in 2012
	Mobile phones sector: 180 Mio units/a in today – 380 Mio units/a in 2009
	Data processing: 700 Mio units/a in today – 950 Mio units/a in 2008