CLARUS_pq

Project

Home / Project

Project Description

The CLARUS project aims to connect the Sustainable Manufacturing Paradigm in the food industry with AI-based applications, aiming at developing a platform with high communications and processing capabilities, as well as the use of standardized open protocols and data models that will allow resource consumption assessment and traceability for food industry processes.

The project will be submitted under the call HE-CL4-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01-09: AI, Data and Robotics for the Green Deal and will target the non-robotic outcome. Currently, two pilots have been selected for validating the CLARUS solution. The first pilot focuses on the production off rozen food, where energy andwater consumption can be reduced using AI and data technologies. The other pilot focuses on the meat by-product production where the aim is to reduce the energy and maintain the quality of the products by optimizing the logistics of the by-products arrival. CLARUS ambitions include not only contributing to resource and logistic optimization methods through the twopilot solutions, but also making a more general contribution through the creation of a Green Deal Index (GDI).

Objectives

The growth of the world’s human population, the advent of resource shortages and environmental difficulties are forcing industrial sectors to face sustainability issues more than ever. Due to its high consumption of natural resources, food industry represents one of the main sectors requiring a long-term vision to manage sustainability. The need to guide the sector toward a Green Transition is pushed by a strong emphasis on improving the environmental and social sustainability of its activities, products and processes, leveraging also on Digital Transition.

CLARUS proposal aims to connect Sustainable Paradigm in the food industry and AI-based applications, trying todevelop a platform with high communications and processing capabilities, aiming for the use of standardized open protocols and data models that will allow resource consumption assessment and traceability for processes in the food industry. The focal point of CLARUS proposal is therefore the “Sustainability Data” of food production and consumption, intended as the source of information strictly related to food industry sustainability (e.g., materials and energies consumed, waste produced, emission and pollution, water consumption, logistics optimization, etc.),whose correct collection, analysis and tracing can lead to enormous benefits for the natural resources management within food manufacturing systems and food supply chains.

At the same time, Digital Transformation of food companies represents an enabler of Sustainability Transformation thanks to the benefits smart technologies can offer in terms of data management and elaboration. Although the choice to digitize manufacturing processes for food companies is increasingly clear and linear, it does not seem to be the same for achieving better sustainability standards. In general, there is confusion within industrial sectors in correctly identifying the actions to be taken foran efficient Green Transition.

For this reason, CLARUS proposal is strictly connected with the European Green Deal program in order to develop and define a unique quantitative and standard methodology to support the elaboration of a green-friendly food industry structure and culture, that can generate business in a sustainable way and with a much smaller impact on the environment. Starting from this, CLARUS ambitions try not only to contribute to resource and logistic optimization methods with the two pilots’ solutions but aims to generate a more general contribution with the creation of a Green Deal Index (GDI). 

Expected Results