JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #119 - March 2018 - 3

EDlTORlAL

lndustry 4.0:
make it real

n°119 March 2018

55 year
th

President and CEO/Publisher:

Frédérique Mutel - mutel@jeccomposites.com

Editor-in-chief & Media director:
Frédéric Reux - reux@jeccomposites.com

Technical editors:

Aïcha Mikdam - mikdam@jeccomposites.com
Franck Glowacz - glowacz@jeccomposites.com

Contributors:

Marie-Hélène Corbin - corbin@jeccomposites.com

Deputy-editor & Graphic designer:
Antoine Morel - morel@jeccomposites.com

Graphic designer:

Habib Boufetah - boufetah@jeccomposites.com

Development Director:

Anne-Carole Barbarin - barbarin@jeccomposites.com

Marketing Director:
Sandrine Dumarquez - presse@jeccomposites.com

Technical & Business manager:
Thierry Saint-Martin - saintmartin@jeccomposites.com
Tel: +33 (0)1 58 36 15 73

Technical & Business developer:
Kim-Oanh Truong - kim@jeccomposites.com
Tel: +33 (0)1 58 36 15 74

Mediakit: www.jeccomposites.com/mediakit
Subscriptions:
www.jeccomposites.com/magazine-subscription/

Printing: Chirat, Saint-Just-la-Pendue (42), France
Legal registration: ISSN 1639-965X
Dépôt légal : 3eme trimestre 2017

Photos & illustrations:
All right reserved, unless mentionned.

251, Bd Pereire
75117 Paris - France
Tel: +33 (0)1 58 36 15 00
Fax: +33 (0)1 58 36 15 14
www.jeccomposites.com
JEC Composites Magazine is published by JEC.
The reproduction, even partial, of articles and illustrations
is forbidden, unless prior permission is obtained from JEC
Composites Magazine. The management of JEC Composites
Magazine reserves the right to refuse advertising.

Total Average
Qualified Circulation:

46,909 copies
BPA December statement 2017.
Print circulation of 29,033 and
electronic circulation of 17,876

Frédérique Mutel

JEC President & CEO

"What can accelerate the development
of composites?" is a question I am often
asked. While it is true that the growth of
composites has been fairly steady at about
5% per year for a number of decades now,
we professionals would like to see this rate
accelerate... we even dream of a surge.
What have we seen so far? The composite
sector has made progress all along its value
chain - not only upstream for raw materials,
but also further down for intermediate
products and the manufacturing process,
with mature technologies. The field
of raw materials continues to flourish,
with progressive materials, new, betterformulated resins and increasingly highperformance fibres, whether synthetic
or natural. For example, scientists are
now working on new carbon fibres that
originate not from petroleum, but from
lignite - i.e., from wood, and therefore a
renewable material. There are increasingly
wider ranges for intermediate products
like fabrics, pellets, and prepregs. And
processing technologies have become more
environment friendly by adopting closedmould or closed-loop processes like for
instance SMC, RTM, filament winding,
pultrusion and injection/compression. So
yes, we have made progress.
But after fifty years of supplying prototypes
and small series, isn't it time to move
on to a larger-scale scenario? The main
advance is probably the capability for mass
production, in particular for the automotive,
electronics and consumer-product sectors.
And beyond automotive - as long as

N°119 March 2018 /

we're on the subject of "large scale" - the
aerospace industry is also interested in mass
production for its ongoing programmes, in
view of the number of airplanes to deliver.
So the words you currently hear the most
in our industry are automation, robotics
and additive manufacturing. The room
for progress is reassuring. At the JEC
World trade show, which has become the
composite sector's largest meeting (four
times the size of the second-largest one in
Shanghai and gathering more than 40,000
professionals), you will see all the elements
of the "new deal" that is more than likely
to change the size of our market. You will
meet up with Industry 4.0, a theme that
is the highlight of the year 2018. Industry
4.0 is having an impact on our composite
factories, and in Europe, it is particularly
visible in those that supply the aerospace
and automotive industries. We can say that
the fourth industrial revolution is taking
place in the composite sector. JEC World
will reflect this transformation with the
arrival of companies and scientific centres
that will propose things like software
tools, robots, artificial intelligence and
3D printing. Industry 4.0 also means
data exchange and Internet-assisted
manufacturing. JEC World 2018 will host
some of the most prominent 4.0 players
from America, Europe and Asia.
Our main theme this year is "Make it
Real". We can broaden the scope of what
is possible. We invite you to participate
actively in the transformation of our
industry.

jec composites magazine

http://www.jeccomposites.com/mediakit http://www.jeccomposites.com/magazine-subscription/ http://www.jeccomposites.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #119 - March 2018