Building the Digital Backbone of Circular Manufacturing
Digital collaboration and data interoperability are essential for enabling circular manufacturing ecosystems. Within the CIRCULOOS project, the Integrated Data Platform has been developed as the technological backbone that connects factories, digital tools, and supply chain partners, enabling secure and interoperable data exchange across circular manufacturing networks.
The first version of the platform established a standards-based infrastructure built on NGSI-LD and FIWARE technologies, enabling real-time and historical data management across manufacturing processes. By integrating core components such as Orion-LD for context management, Mintaka for temporal data storage, Keycloak for authentication, and Kong as an API gateway, the platform provides a secure environment for sharing and analysing industrial data from sensors, factories, and digital applications. This architecture allows various CIRCULOOS tools, including the Digital Twin, supply chain optimisation services, and sustainability assessment tools, to exchange information seamlessly through a shared Common Data Model.
Building on this foundation, the final version of the platform introduces federation capabilities, transforming the system from a centralised architecture into a distributed ecosystem. In this model, manufacturing partners can operate their own local Orion-LD data brokers at factory level, maintaining control over their operational data while selectively synchronising relevant information with the central CIRCULOOS platform. Through a dedicated federation bridge service, entity updates created locally can be securely forwarded to the central environment using authenticated communication via Keycloak and Kong.
This federated architecture enables a balanced approach between data sovereignty and cross-organisational collaboration. Factories retain full control over sensitive data within their local environments while still contributing selected information to shared services such as sustainability assessment, digital twins, and supply chain optimisation tools.
Together, these developments mark an important milestone for the CIRCULOOS project, delivering a robust and scalable platform that supports secure data sharing, interoperability, and collaborative decision-making across circular manufacturing value chains. By combining open standards, modular architecture, and federated data management, the CIRCULOOS Integrated Platform lays the groundwork for a new generation of data-driven, circular industrial ecosystems.