ICT Challenges in Advancing Circular Economy: Insights from Mechanical Plastics Recycling
ICT Challenges in Advancing Circular Economy: Insights from Mechanical Plastics Recycling
Speaker: Ramin Nikzad-Langerodi (Software Competence Center Hagenberg (SCCH GmbH))
Chair: Marco P. Seabra dos Reis (University of Coimbra, Portugal)
Date: 19th March 2025, at 12:30-13:30 CET
The transition from linear, resource-intensive industries to a circular economy introduces significant challenges for information and communication technologies (ICT). Achieving circularity in material usage, such as through mechanical plastics recycling, necessitates a shift to agile and interconnected value chains capable of addressing fluctuations in material streams and evolving market requirements. This flexibility depends on the development and implementation of three key areas:
- Innovative data management and process-oriented data processing approaches to optimize resource utilization and operational efficiency.
- Secure methods for data exchange and integration across organizational boundaries, ensuring the protection of proprietary information while enabling transparency and collaboration.
- Collaborative process modeling and real-time monitoring to facilitate simulation and control of entire value chains, supporting dynamic decision-making and system optimization.
This keynote systematically explores these challenges and corresponding solution strategies, using mechanical plastics recycling as a representative case study. The insights aim to highlight the critical role of ICT systems in enabling sustainable and efficient circular economies.
Bio:
Ramin Nikzad-Langerodi is a researcher team leader at the Software Competence Center Hagenberg (SCCH GmbH) located in Upper Austria. Before joining SCCH, he worked as a chemometrician at the Research Center for Non-Destructive Testing (RECENDT GmbH) and as a machine learning researcher at the Department of Knowledge-Based Mathematical Systems at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz. Ramin Nikzad-Langerodi holds a master’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Zurich and a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Vienna.
