To sustain future economic growth in Norway, it is necessary to define impactful actions that will strengthen the competitiveness of the Norwegian industry. From this perspective, manufacturing companies must improve their ability to innovate and introduce viable new products into steadily more dynamic market places. In the aluminium sector specifically, there is a large untapped potential for adding value to products potentially made by the large tonnage of aluminium produced in Norway.
Hence, to increase competitiveness of the Norwegian-based aluminium industry, V-ALU-E aims to develop and create new knowledge, models and capabilities for:
- Uncovering and developing new applications of aluminium
- Collaborative co-creation and value-driven innovation
- Agile product development
- Innovative knowledge-based (lean) development and portfolio management
Innovative aspect
It is hypothesized that collaborative strategies and capabilities at different levels, including (a) project teams, (b) between project teams within an enterprise, (c) across companies-within cluster/industry, will be the most important enablers for innovating aluminium-based products.
Within this project, new knowledge on inter-intra collaboration, co-development, and learning capabilities and strategies within the context of value-driven innovation of aluminium products will be generated. Insights from this project will facilitate and enhance:
- Cross-pollination within project teams
- Within an enterprise
- Within a value chain or cluster of companies
- As well as between academia and industrial companies
The overall industrial outcomes are thus more competitive, engineered aluminium products with higher value-added contents, and improved utilization and benefits of university-industry collaborative projects
Project partners
V-ALU-E (Cross-Industry, Cross-Industry, Cross-Science Collaboration Strategies for Value Driven Aluminium Product Development) is a KPN project, funded by the Norwegian Research Council and the partners. The industrial partners are Hydro and Alcoa, and the research partners NTNU Aluminium Product Innovation Center (NAPIC) and SINTEF Manufacturing.
