Case studies

Backed by Eureka, a Spanish paper and packaging company and a large Austrian company developed a cost-effective, environmentally-friendly solution to meet growing demand for white-grade top-coated paper. 

With demand for recycled paper materials outstripping supply, the quality was suffering. Specifically, Saica had to find a cost-effective solution to produce higher-grade corrugated cases and testliners on which essential information could be printed. They also needed to avoid relying on bleaching to get that familiar white “quality” look. 

After intensive R&D, Saica introduced its pioneering “Infinite” line of corrugated containerboard. Made from 100% recycled fibre, it offers higher brightness, whiteness and colour intensity and better print quality. It is thus ideal for modern packaging that needs to be both durable and appealing, with colourful printed graphics and texts that are easy to read. 

Project funded by: CDTI (Germany), FFG (Austria)

A transatlantic collaboration between Canadian and French companies has resulted in an innovative search engine that responds to shapes rather than text. 10-15% of parts used by designers and manufacturers are duplicates or close duplicates and “new” parts are unnecessarily created because of the time it takes to search in a CAD portal. 3DPartFinder helps designers and manufacturers search for parts, reducing costs and accelerating production. To search, input a model and the search engine displays more than 100 million unique results in 3D in under seven seconds. The application is implemented in a CAD portal for users around the world.

Eureka brought complementary skills together, giving the partners a competitive advantage that resulted in multi-million euro benefits. The project partners are developing an interface for the search engine to work with any component manufacturer, CAD portal or database, and they hope to extend the search engine’s capabilities in other fields.

Funded by Bpifrance and the National Research Council

A Canadian large company and German SME developed, field-tested and delivered an innovative iron-ore sensing, sorting and communication system. The solution makes mining low-grade ore feasible and optimises the whole decision-support process. It boosts performance by up to 20% and saves on energy, water and chemical use.

The ground-breaking sensor technology and data analytics platform evolving from this project provides mining operations with unprecedented real-time information about their ore deposits.

Project funded by: National Research Council (Canada)

The Blockchain PISC project involved close collaboration between Swiss and Canadian SMEs. They coordinated their research efforts, exchanged development experiences and opened access to their respective products and services in new global markets. The new technologies developed have since seen commercial success. 

Ensuring that privacy, identity, security and compliance (PISC) issues in new digital currencies (such as Bitcoin) are fully compatible with global financial systems is key to the integration and expansion of these new forms of financial asset. This Eureka project developed an intelligent software that can analyse big data on blockchain markets to ensure the correct identification of customers and end-users. At the same time, it enables the private nature of transactions to be preserved. 

Project funded by: CNRC-NRC (Canada), SERI (Switzerland)