Autor: Lars Aldinger

This article presents an overview of a transformable Factory Cockpit that supports all aspects of decision making in factories from short term operations to long term strategies. It integrates elements of classical Business Intelligence Systems with methods of Virtual and Digital Factories. Hereby, it provides small and medium sized companies with real time transparency regarding production performance and enables rapid development and evaluation of alternative configurations of the production system. The prototype will be implemented in September 2008.

Permanently changing environment conditions, the constant market advancement and the accelerated technological progress will force enterprises to precisely plan and optimise their production in ever shorter cycles. Planning tasks in the field of the production will therefore become increasingly complex. The tools of the digital factory and aspects of the technology management will make Advanced Industrial Engineering a powerful support for planners and designers. This enables them to plan and execute change processes faster and more precise. The article gives an overview of future solutions advanced Industrial Engineering will provide for the planning and optimisation of factories for the year 2020.