Remanufacturing Upscaling via Semantic and interoperable digital Twins towards circuLar, AI-driven, standardized and Industry 5.0-ready manuFacturing Ecosystems

RUST2LIFE delivers an Industry-5.0, AI-enabled blueprint to scale high-quality remanufacturing in Europe, starting from automotive and transferable to adjacent sectors. The project implements a six-phase factory workflow (intelligent disassembly & sorting, inspection & condition assessment, treatment planning & routing, performance testing & certification, modular reassembly & integration, deployment & reuse decision) run on a semantic, interoperable digital backbone that links Digital Twins (S-AAS) and the EU Digital Product Passport (DPP) via the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Human-in-the-loop AI agents assist triage, disassembly planning, repair/reshape, test planning and certification, creating unit-level digital threads and audit-ready evidence from intake to redeployment. Three PDCA pilot cycles at leading automotive sites progressively validate the approach to TRL7, targeting doubled remanufactured volumes vs 2021 baselines while reducing energy and GHG per component and preserving market-grade quality. Beyond technology, RUST2LIFE invests in people, skills and trust: role-based curricula and micro-credentials equip operators and engineers to supervise AI, while social partners co-shape adoption to ensure safety, inclusion and wellbeing. The project quantifies circularity and decarbonisation through integrated LCA/LCC and exposes evidence through DPP entries. Business cases and a scale-out playbook convert pilot proof into pilot-to-plant pathways and replication assessments beyond automotive. Finally, RUST2LIFE contributes pre-normative assets backed by ring-tested pilot evidence, alongside concise policy briefs aligned with ESPR, DPP and Manufacturing Data Spaces, to accelerate EU-wide uptake. RUST2LIFE couples process, data and human-centred AI to keep components in service longer, at lower environmental footprint and with certification-grade assurance, strengthening Europe’s industrial resilience and competitiveness.