For this project, Rotte has joined forces with scientists from the Institute of Electrical Engineering and the Software Innovation Lab at the University of Paderborn, as well as with the companies Brummelte & Lienen Werkzeugbau, MOESCHTER Group, Phoenix Contact, MORYX, WestfalenWIND Planung, AEG Power Solutions, Intilion and Kirchhoff Automotive. The partners of the project "Renewable Energies for the Efficient Operation of Press Hardening Lines" (in short: Re²Pli) want to contribute to the industrial application of the process around the inductive heating of steel components by regeneratively generated electricity. To this end, Rotte brings practical experience in industrial processes and robotic automation to the consortium.

Energy-efficient, flexible and space-saving

"The goal is to develop an automated process that is very flexible and can react at short notice to external boundary conditions such as the amount of available green electricity or even the current electricity price. In order to be able to replace the current established processes from industry, it must be possible to optimize this flexible process to the point where it is ready for series production. This is a very exciting project to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in the manufacturing process as well," reports Felix Haneke, Rotte project manager and project member at Re²Pli, enthusiastically.

The project is led by the Chair of "Lightweight Automotive Construction" at the University of Paderborn and is being funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia with around 3.5 million euros over a period of three years. The findings will also be incorporated into the "New Mobility Paderborn" lighthouse project, which is conducting research on the topic of digital and autonomous driving.