reconfigurability

The industrial production hast o react on internal and external turbulences. The transformability of the production is especially important in the field of the multi-variant series production. Transformability in factories is reached by using a fast operating and reacting planning which includes classic methods of the structured factory planning as well as modern digital tools. Such a planning is reached on a shared database and transfers results of former planning’s as well as simulations. So the planning is done in shorter time and has a higher quality. To be able to realize the planning the real factory must be reconfigurable to get an adaptive production. The learning factory at the IFF was founded to provide the missing knowledge about the transformability of enterprise structures to industry

The demands on production companies increasingly vary due to unpre-dictable changes. This results in batch production of varying products and shorter life cycles of products and leads to difficulties in controlling the production sequences. In order to maintain optimal production processes the machining systems, including the controllers, must be adapted, when changes get too drastic. Thus autarkic modules with standardised interfaces for mechanical connection, energy, and information are required. As the adaptation process must be manageable und executable in a short time, self-adapting control systems, which adapt themselves depending on the changed machine structure, are needed.