From traditional production to the digital value creation of tomorrow.
The issues surrounding the transformation of value creation range from product design, production systems and their control to questions of social, economic and ecological sustainability and the international transferability of digital production concepts, their transfer into business models and effects on the respective socio-technical systems.
The experts at the New Production Institute research and evaluate approaches to the topics of open source hardware, circular economy, sustainable innovation, sustainable manufacturing, communities und commons-based peer-production in various research and application projects as part of the value creation systems working group at the Helmut Schmidt University’s Laboratory of Production Engineering.
Interdisciplinary research
In the following we would like to inform you about our current projects.
If you are interested in further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Project Overview
Fab City Hamburg
dtec.bw Fab City Hamburg is a transdisciplinary research and implementation project with the aim of establishing a resilient, circular production infrastructure at an urban level. As part of the global Fab City network, it pursues the vision of producing material goods locally and only exchanging digital blueprints globally. As part of the dtec.bw project, decentralized open labs with digital manufacturing technologies have been set up since 2021, open hardware solutions (including machine kits) have been developed and participatory educational formats have been implemented. The underlying approach combines technological sovereignty, open innovation and urban sustainability in a practice-oriented real-world laboratory that aims for scalability and systemic transformation.
Interfacer
INTERFACER is an EU-funded research project (2021-2023) to develop an open, decentralized operating system for fab cities (local production facilities). It combines open source hardware, digital product passports and blockchain technologies to enable circular, locally adapted production. Through federated data infrastructures, standardized toolchains and hands-on workshops, the project contributes to sustainable, self-determined value creation and knowledge networking.
Production Next Door
Production Next Door (ProNeD) is an interdisciplinary real-world laboratory for researching digitalized, decentralized production networks using the example of urban furniture production. It combines global open source development with local production using data-driven planning and control systems. The aim is resilient, sustainable and customizable urban production – scientifically based on methods from Industry 4.0, AI and socio-technical systems research.
StartUp Port
StartUp Port is a scientifically based network for the promotion of research-based start-ups in the Hamburg metropolitan region. It bundles offers from universities and partners, professionalizes consulting and qualification, and strengthens the transfer of knowledge into practice.
Digital4jobs
Digital4Jobs (2021-2023) is a science-based project to investigate the role of Open Labs and Open Source Appropriate Technologies (OSAT) in technological empowerment and economic development in Tunisia. It aims to empirically assess how locally established open labs as micro-factories provide access to digital manufacturing, strengthen knowledge and skills and thus promote locally anchored, bottom-up economic growth.
Digital Education
The project researches and designs the sustainable introduction of digitally supported teaching through organizationally embedded blended learning concepts. It combines sociological, organizational and educational theory approaches with the practical development of open learning infrastructures (e.g. OER, ILIAS) and cooperative implementation at educational institutions.
Places of Incubovation
The PISWI project is researching how open lab concepts can be implemented sustainably in Tunisia in order to establish technological learning spaces and open source hardware prototyping. The aim is to develop an open manufacturing infrastructure and viable business and operating models (e.g. textile technology), based on participatory research with universities, industry and end users.
Workshops, train-the-trainer programs and teaching modules were used to train around 80 participants in OSAT machines and involve up to 70 students by 2024. The empirical findings gained on participatory value creation serve as the basis for policy recommendations for scaling up. Key message: The project develops and evaluates open labs as an experimental infrastructure for digital manufacturing and open source hardware in Tunisia. It combines practical prototype work with empirical research and institutional cooperation in order to establish a sustainable, participatory innovation landscape.
