Ready for Circular Manufacturing? Metal Forming Processes Studies and Research Agenda

Abstract:

The mitigation of primary resource exploitation and their usage within linear economies ultimately leads to systematic leakages from economy and the depletion of natural resources. In contrast, a circular instead of a linear economy aims towards minimizing these leakages by reintroducing all resources to economy without negative externalities. Within the circular economy (CE), manufacturing plays a vital role for the conversion of resources towards products. For a manufacturing system, it is hence of critical importance to understand the implications and requirements of CE for production. The present study develops the Ready4CM “Ready For Circular Manufacturing” principle. Manufacturing systems are considered in the light of serving the needs of CE, where manufacturing flexibility, scalability and reconfigurability may pave the way but need to be controlled sufficiently to achieve resilience towards more drastic uncertainties of used materials. Not only focusing on process, but also on machine and tool, this paper contributes towards CE by identifying systematic aspects of circularity in manufacturing systems. We embedded our contribution in existing frameworks that calculate and balance sustainability potentials within circular economy while our approach, Ready4CM, aims to identify and summarize a comprehensive understanding of technical premises for manufacturing processes to serve and facilitate CE.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 1051)
• Pages: 165-178
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-TrL9h0
• Online since: April 2026
• Authors: Peter Frohn-Sörensen*, Apostolos Aslanidis, Michael Geueke, Bernd Engel
• Keywords: Circular Manufacturing, Flexible Manufacturing Systems, Segmented Tools, Sustainable Manufacturing, Upcycling

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