IT tools currently available in the context of digital factory allow to develop and to analyze factory concepts on different levels of abstraction. One challenge is the complexity of factory planning processes. These factory planning processes can be described with an interdisciplinary, participative and iterative character. To handle these complex processes modern methods of concurrent and simultaneous engineering get more important. These methods require new challenges from IT resulting in isolated IT-tools of a digital factory. Integration of these isolated IT-tools is the common challenge and requires an integrative solution. In this paper the result of a study conducted by the Department of Computer Integrated Design (DiK) will be presented. The two main questions of the study are: The usage of tools of digital factory in the industry and the need for a factory data management as an integrative solution in industrial practice.
