Circular Economy in Learning Factories Using the Example of Transfer Molding

Rising material costs, growing pollution, and the consequences of climate change have made circular economy popular. Its core principle is to use the value embedded in resources more than once for economic and ecological reasons. Learning factories can be used to promote this concept in engineering education. A particularly interesting application involves use cases where waste can be utilized immediately within the learning facility. This paper compares the currently used 3D printing with a simple transfer molding process that enables the direct recycling of rejects. For this purpose, several measured and calculated metrics, such as resource consumption and (environmental) costs, were considered to evaluate the performance of the two manufacturing technologies. For the present use case in a specific learning factory, transfer molding proved to be the preferred technology.