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Leapfrog

SEC has been retained to manage Grado Zero Espace’s participation in the LEAPFROG project, in which just over 30 different entities from all over Europe participate in a consortium agreement.  Quoting from the official LEAPFROG website (http://www.leapfrog-eu.org/LeapfrogIP/main.asp) the goal of the project is to “modernize and ultimately transform the clothing sector into a demand-driven, knowledge-based, high-tech industry by exploitation of recent advances in a broad area of scientific-technological fields ranging from nanotechnology and polymeric material science, robotics and innovative joining techniques, 3D computer graphics and animation, to e‑business and management research.”

The project is subdivided into a number of research modules, each focused on a specific aspect of the textile/clothing supply chain and clothing manufacturing process.  Grado Zero Espace, as industrial co-leader of Research Module A, is a key element in the development and industrialization of innovative fabric preparation involving shaping and stiffening.  One goal of this research module is the development of fabrics with shape memory behavior that can be exploited to pre-shape certain complex clothing components in order to reduce assembly complexity and sewing operations.  A second goal is to produce stiffening compounds that can be used to stiffen fabrics either temporarily to facilitate robotic handling or permanently to reduce the number of layers, and thus material, required in the manufacture of elements such as shirt collars.  The results of this work will be integrated with development being made in the field of robotic handling and sewing of fabric into finished clothing products.  For a full description of the LEAPFROG project please see the official website.

Grado Zero Espace retained SEC to manage its technology development activities from a technical guidance and technology strategy point of view, as well as interface and liaise with the consortium.  In this role, SEC has been able to bring to bear the benefit of its knowledge of the process of innovation and technology development, as well as technical expertise in smart materials and intellectual property management and protection.

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	Vision of integrated system resulting from LEAPFROG – courtesy of www.leapfrog-eu.org