digital factory

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.

Today’s new products and services must be marketed in cycles which are rapidly becoming shorter and shorter. The pricing pressure and the progressing trend toward individualisation of products pose a tremendous challenge for major sectors of the industry. In the future, therefore, the implementation of digital methods will be necessary to a much greater extent than in the past, not only in product development, but also in process, production, and factory planning. For ensuring their own survival in a globalised world, small and medium-sized enterprises will also be faced with the inescapable necessity of introducing the digital factory. In this context, 3D-CAD factory planning can be regarded as a basic prerequisite for successful implementation of the digital factory. However, this prerequisite has not yet been satisfied in many companies. In the present publication, an overall method for implementing computer-aided 3D-CAD factory planning in conformance with the requirements is ...

In the manufacturing industry, the digital factory plays a decisive role for modern engineering. By linking all information and data from the various stages of factory planning, an efficient and holistic planning and continuous improvement of products, processes and resources is possible. The use of changed processes and new tools needs other and advanced competencies respectively as well as a continuous learning of involved employees. IT-based and stronger parallelized planning processes require also a change in organization and working culture. This article analyzes how the qualification of employees looks on the face of the digital factory utilizing the management of knowledge and learning.

The market-oriented product development describes a focusing of needs, which leads ideally to high product quality and profitability. In the context of “Digital Factory” this paper focuses on the integrated product and process design, which is oriented to the physical part of the product. Due to the high product complexity, shorter product life cycles and increased competition situation is the product development faced with new challenges. Both the speed and the quality of planning should be improved further. Only the combination of organizational approaches and information technologies like for example “Simultaneous Engineering” and the “Digital Factory” promises a sufficient increase of planning efficiency. The following paper deals with existing methodologies and promising approaches in the field of “Digital Factory” against the background of an integrated product and process design. Referring to the requirements of logistics planning, an early integration of ...

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.

Production planning within the Mercedes Car Group is challenged by reduction of development times while increasing the product portfolio and quality. New approaches were necessary to implement the factorys needs into the product development as early as possible. 5 Years ago the Digital Factory was founded to secure that no production is started without a digital validation of product, production process and tools. Today the final assembly planning at DaimlerChrysler follows an integrated workflow of final assembly, Logistics and facility planning.

A widely established tool for modeling, analysing, evaluating and optimizing in manufacturing planning is the discrete-event material flow simulation. Considerable benefits of using simulation show the necessity of increasingly applying simulation in the planning process. However, applying material flow simulation is also very costly. Results generated from simulation studies can be used for creating simulation-based characteristic diagrams. These diagrams allow the reduction of expenditures required for modeling and experimentation. Simulation-based characteristic diagrams can be used for efficiently solving frequent simulation problems. This paper introduces a methodology for reducing the expenditures required for creating simulation-based characteristic diagrams. The application of this methodology is demonstrated in an example.

This technical contribution presents a digital planning environment for an integrated facility layout and logistics planning. The aim is a noticeable reduction of time and effort for middle- and long-term facility planning and production planning. Therefore current data from the shop floor and order management are provided in an object-oriented consistent digital structure. This data is used to forecast the need for action and to deduct alternative solutions. Planning becomes more effective, long-term planning tasks become day-to-day activities so that the flexibility of the enterprise increases.

“The Digital Factory is no longer a vision, but on the way to reality“, Volkswagen reported on the branch meeting in Ludwigsburg in June 2004. This quote reflects the situation of the Digital Factory in automotive industry in an impressing way. Other branches and enterprise sizes still have to accomplish this step, as an actual study of Fraunhofer IPA shows. Here the question arises how enterprises handle the subject “Introduction of the Digital Factory”. To say it directly - there is no general approach. Depending on the structure of customers and suppliers, the size of enterprise and on the product, individual approaches have to be found and implemented. But what can be pointed out independent of the specific enterprise are the success factors for the introduction of the Digital Factory. This subject is dealt with in the article at hand.

The present article reports the results of a methodical approach to the implementation of the Digital Factory in the aircraft industry. At first the initial conditions are surveyed with regard to selected company departments. Subsequently an application concept for integrating computer aided tools in production planning processes is presented and assessed. Eventually, in order to achieve an optimal introduction of the Digital Factory, the main organisational challenges are debated.