News flash: That cutting-edge concept called “the digital factory” is not so new. Companies such as Zollner Electronics Inc., Kensey Nash, and General Motors have been simulating plant operations and digitizing design data for 10 years now.
In the old days, this was called “from art to part” or “concept to reality,” but the goal has always been the same: to save time and money by creating digital rather than physical prototypes, and to leverage 3D virtualization to streamline commissioning of production equipment in the plant.
Manufacturers are no strangers to using computer-aided design (CAD) software to make digital mockups of products and simulation applications to plan for production. What’s different now — and the reason vendors are becoming much more vocal about their offerings — is the recent addition to many applications of “data association.” This refers to the ability to relate data from disparate systems so that a change made in a design document, for example, will be automatically reflected on the production line. While CAD and automation software vendors are still a long way from delivering complete, interoperable applications that fully support the digital factory concept, data association represents a major change from cobbling together custom interfaces, manufacturers say.
For example, using associative data relationships, Kensey Nash, a maker of injection molds for medical manufacturers, has dramatically improved its ability to deliver products faster while satisfying traceability regulations. Data association, enabled by a library of common data objects, creates a ripple effect, in which a change in the product model design is automatically carried downstream to the tooling and coding of the factory floor machines.