The benefits of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are fundamentally changing the way we live our daily lives. But manufacturing industry has not yet fully exploited these opportunities. The ultimate goal of the MC-SUITE project is to bring the benefits to manufacturing plants. The MC-SUITE project consortium strongly believes that current ICT can have a significant impact on productivity by increasing the competence and expertise of European manufacturers, especially SMEs. The project aims to develop MC-SUITE, an application consisting of 6 different modules that will reduce the distance between simulated and real processes.

• MC-Virtual gets the final toolpath and real part quality, cutting force and process stability to push the limits of actual computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software.
• MC-Optim optimises the milling process taking into account several aspects (e.g. productivity, quality).
• MC-CyPhy includes 3 different embedded systems linked to the virtual model and the control system to increase productivity.
• The MC-Monitor is a cloud-based system for storing heterogeneous data (e.g. signals from the machine's internal sensors or embedded systems, or operator-generated data).
• The MC-Analytics platform supports predictive maintenance and productivity improvement using data stored in the cloud.
• MC-Bridge compares real data from the control system with results from the virtual model. This allows online and offline optimisation of both the simulation and the real machining process.

Project duration: 2015 – 2017