Given the worldwide economic recession, manufacturers are under pressure to become more resourceful and agile. As a result, companies are starting to take a serious look at the value of incorporating more simulation and visualization into design-to-production processes so that they can see and test production setups before actually making new production investments.
Technology vendors are taking note and introducing products that move manufacturing closer to the virtual reality of the digital factory.
While industry experts say we are still some years away from technology tools that support a soup-to-nuts digital manufacturing environment, many vendors are coming up with point solutions that offer ways to close the loop between the design of a product and actual production. Vendors are finding, however, that integrating those point solutions into a unified whole is a challenge, in part because the software programs that drive the different domains — CAD and control — usually haven't been designed to communicate with one another. In addition, an integrated digital factory environment must be able to manage the information that's generated by the different applications involved. That's why product lifecycle management (PLM) is an important application to include in the digital factory discussion.
Automation and PLM leader Siemens is one vendor that is going back to the drawing board to create a turnkey solution that incorporates all of these technologies in a tightly integrated offering. Meanwhile PLM software provider Dassault Systèmes, which has partnerships with Rockwell Automation, Omron Corp., and Schneider Electric on the control side, as well as iBASEt and Intercim on the manufacturing operations management side, is offering manufacturers multiple digital factory entry points.
In addition, Dassault and other vendors, such as Autodesk and Invensys Process Systems, offer visualization tools that virtualize the factory floor experience.
The digital factory concept, at its core, is about modeling and integrating design and production processes. The challenge, however, is keeping digital models in sync with the physical world, particularly the plant floor, where change is constant. Often, as soon as the physical plant is running, the digital model diverges from what's going on in the real world, says Patrick Michel, Dassault's vice president of Delmia industry solutions and marketing. "Everyone is working to extend [the digital model] to have a permanent view of the accurate state of what is being built, as well as to incorporate knowledge sharing [between engineering and manufacturing]," he says.
The work being done by Delmia and Intercim, for example, will tightly integrate Dassault's V6 PLM architecture, specifically its Delmia digital manufacturing software — which includes early process planning, modeling, and simulation of assembly lines — with Intercim's Pertinence software suite for executing processes, tracking workflow, and managing quality during production.
The goal is to align manufacturing with engineering and PLM, the companies say. Specifically, that means creating an "as built" model that can tie back to the "as designed" model using a common language.
"You can see a virtual representation of the factory, take a snapshot of that, and simulate scenario changes before spending any money," says Judson Plapp, Intercim's vice president of marketing and corporate strategy. "That's the point of closing the loop. Getting real data and feeding that back to engineering."
Dassault made a minority investment in Intercim in order to facilitate the sharing of intellectual property (IP) and to ensure tight integration between the two companies' technologies. But Dassault is also working with iBASEt on an integrated offering — absent any kind of financial investment.