ENLARGE

Motivation of the project

Currently, most of the world's battery production and knowledge is centered in Asia. However, there are new large-scale battery production facilities being established globally, often led by Asian suppliers. To compete with established turnkey suppliers and meet the growing demand for battery cell production, German and European companies need to combine their skills strategically. By collaborating and incorporating digital innovations, German mechanical and plant engineering can create a balance and enable adaptable, interconnected and flexible battery production.

Brief description

The ENLARGE project is tackling two crucial issues in the digitization of battery cell production:

Firstly, there is currently no comprehensive map of important parameters and their properties in battery cell production. By using the findings of ENLARGE, companies, and researchers can identify relevant properties and accelerate the development of digital solutions.

Secondly, there is a problem with data consistency due to incompatible data descriptions, which requires significant translation and transformation effort. ENLARGE minimizes this hurdle, making it easier for German machine and plant engineering to enter battery cell production and interconnect their systems.

The project addresses both problems simultaneously to ensure maximum relevance and applicability. ENLARGE is developing a "meta-standard" for battery cell manufacturing based on existing standards such as EPCIS, ISO/IEC 19987, OPC UA, and industry-specific Companion Specifications (CS). This "meta-standard" summarizes existing standards, adds previously undescribed elements, and defines the correct interaction of all components involved.

Working plan

The project is divided into nine work packages (WP):

In WP1, the requirements are first analyzed and recorded in a requirements specification.
WP2 deals with the conception of information models. Here, parameters are first defined, preliminary work is aggregated, and then various information models are designed for a meta standard.
In WP3, these information models are implemented and tested. The following WPs deal with the implementation of the information models in specific use cases.
AP4 examines the use case of cross-process traceability.
AP5 analyzes the use case of Battery Passports for Production.
AP6 examines the application in process optimization.
AP7 is concerned with the validation of the overall system.
In AP8, transfer work is carried out and publications are processed.
The final AP9 covers the technical project management.

Work packages 7-9 run in parallel as accompanying projects alongside the other work packages.

Result utilisation

Upon completion of the project, companies and researchers will receive a comprehensive list of standardized descriptions and implementations of reference components for production, integration, and retrofitting. These parameters will be relevant to the battery value chain and validated through three use cases, including traceability, battery passport for production, and process optimization. This will facilitate easier integration and networking of systems for both companies already involved in battery cell production and those new to the field, leveraging their existing know-how.