Virtual Factory Framework: An Innovative Approach to Support the Planning and Optimization of the Next Generation Factories

Abstract

Industrial managers are in the expectation that the new generation factories bring more competitiveness to the manufacturing companies through innovative approaches, methods and tools that support the factory planning process. The concept of "factory as a product" perceives the factory as a complex long life product introducing design advantages for factory planning and optimization, seeking to improve quality, reduce ramp-up, product delivery and overall reduce time and costs. In order to attain these objectives, there is an urgent need for a Virtual Factory Framework to structure the new generation factories.

Different Perspectives of a Factory of the Future: An Overview

“…Therefore, the roles of the actors in a multiple cloud collaborative environment need to be further studied to support a dynamic form of collaborations, flexible sharing policies, as well as diverse pricing models for each manufacturing asset. At the same time, the human role is taking into consideration during the design of a virtual factory [1]; in particular, the parties involved in a service-oriented virtual factory are defined as [22]: service provider, service consumer and service broker. These roles respectively identify the parties which offer physical services, the consumer of these services, and the owner who controls and governs the virtual factory.…”

Factory Templates for Digital Factories Framework

“…The Virtual Factory Framework is based on four pillars [6,18]: the reference model for factory planning, the Virtual Factory manager (VF Manager), the Virtual Factory Modules (VF Modules) and Knowledge. The first one is based on two key concepts; the ''factory as a product'' and the ''non-linear, non-deterministic planning methodology''.…”

“…There are elements and concepts that are common to all companies and factories, which support and show the relation between all aspects of the life cycle of the factory. These concepts support the development of an architecture, framework and methodology, which is necessary to plan and execute all engineering tasks for company integration that are fundamental for successful production and operation [18]. The application of system engineering concepts in the life cycle of the factory makes it possible to create graphical models that illustrate the main tasks and concepts.…”

“…These concepts highlight the development of methodologies necessary to plan and execute all engineering tasks associated with successful production and operations. Thus, the Factory Template [18] can be seen as a meta-reference model that embodies the company strategy (Fig. 7).…”

“…It is also meant to lay down the foundations for future applications in this research area. The framework that supports the next generation of factories should promote major time and cost savings, while improving performance in the design, management, evaluation and reconfiguration of new or existing facilities, supporting the ability to simulate and estimate a dynamic and complex behaviour over the entire life cycle of the Factory, based on the industrial paradigm ''Factory as a Product'' [7,18].…”