Manufacturing has recently been confronted with new challenges, i.e., processes must allow for new capabilities in generating functional surfaces, enabling them to be miniaturized or their energy consumption and waste generation minimized to ensure sustainability. Brazilian industry must therefore make use of new technologies to add higher value to its products, enabling them to maintain their competitive edge in the global marketplace.
In this context, product development can no longer be dissociated from the corresponding advance in manufacturing processes. Even at a time when Brazil is experiencing deindustrialization and loss of production to China, we can maintain control over the products developed in Brazil for global consumption provided we are able to continue creating innovative products and advanced manufacturing processes.
The Laboratory of Advanced Manufacturing Processes and Sustainability – LAPRAS of the University of São Paulo School of Engineering (EESC-USP) was created to support this particular moment that Brazilian manufacturing is experiencing by producing manufacturing-related knowledge and technologies. LAPRAS is structured into three fields of action, as illustrated below: Environmental Compliance of Manufacturing Processes, Surface Functionalization and Texturing Processes and Advanced Manufacturing Processes.
With a consistent focus on industrial applications, research is developed in partnership with companies that offer the greatest opportunities for innovation in products and processes. This approach contributes to industrial manufacturing development, increasing the probabilities of success of businesses, products and processes with high technology and high added value, generating more jobs and better quality of life.
The technologies under development in each of these areas are described below:
