Virtual Prototyping: Evaluating the Digital Twin Based Virtual Factory for New Product Introduction

Shortening lifecycles and increasing complexity make product and production lifecycle processes more challenging than ever for manufacturing enterprises. Virtual Prototyping (VP) technologies promise a viable solution to handle such challenges in reducing time and physical builds as well as increasing quality. In previous studies, the Digital Twin (DT) based Virtual Factory (VF) concept showed significant potential to handle co-evolution by integrating 3D factory and product models with immersive and interactive 3D Virtual Reality (VR) simulation technology as well as real-time bidirectional data synchronisation between virtual and physical production systems. In this article, we present an extension to the paper “Demonstrating and Evaluating the Digital Twin Based Virtual Factory for Virtual Prototyping” presented at CARV2021. The study presents an evaluation by industry experts of the DT based VF concept for VP in the context of New Product Introduction (NPI) processes. The concept is demonstrated in two cases: wind turbine blade manufacturing and nacelle assembly operations at Vestas Wind Systems A/S. The study shows that the VF provides an immersive virtual environment, which allows the users to reduce the time needed for prototyping. The industry experts propose several business cases for the introduced solution and find that the phases that would have the most gain are the later ones (production) where the product design is more mature.

STUDY OF THE DIGITIZATION LEVEL OF MANUFACTURING COMPANIES

Today, advances in ICT are exponential in nature, and many technologies are now being added from which businesses can benefit from their application in their processes. Digitization is a wide area that already finds active application in businesses processes. It helps create new possibilities in terms of improving process performance, responding more quickly to changes, or helping to reduce costs for different production areas. In general, digitization in an enterprise can be understood as having specific financial as well as personnel requirements. There are few levels of digitalization that we can achieve (document digitalization, digital factory, virtual factory, and smart factory). The research goal of the article is a detailed description and comparison of the individual digitization levels and their tools. The article contains two case studies in which the analysis of processes in the form of questionnaires defines the appropriateness of the level of digitization. Also, based on the analysis, it is possible to say each of the levels of digitization has a particular area of application depending on the nature of production. The main findings of the case studies are that irrelevant digitization is costly and personally demanding without achieving more significant results without analysis. Companies' more efficient operation can be achieved even if the company does not use the latest technological advances and what simple changes need to be incorporated.

Building a virtual factory: an integrated design approach to building smart factories

Purpose The complexity of manufacturing systems, on-going production and existing constraints on the shop floor remain among the main challenges for the analysis, design and development of the models in product, process and factory domains. The potential of different virtual factory (VF) tools and approaches to support simultaneous engineering for the design, and development of these domains has been addressed in the literature. To fulfil this potential, there is a need for an approach which integrates the product, process and production systems for designing and developing VF and its validation in real-life cases. This paper aims to present an integrated design approach for VF design and development, as well as a demonstration implemented in a wind turbine manufacturing plant. Design/methodology/approach As the research calls for instrumental knowledge to discover the effects of intervention on the operations of an enterprise, design science research methodology is considered to be a well-suited methodology for exploring practical usefulness of a generic design to close the theory–practice gap. The study was planned as an exploratory research activity which encompassed the simultaneous design and development of artefacts and retrospective analysis of the design and implementation processes. The extended VF concept, architecture, a demonstration and procedures followed during the research work are presented and evaluated. Findings The artefacts (models and methods) and the VF demonstrator, which was evaluated by industry experts and scholars based on the role of the VF in improving the performance in the evaluation and reconfiguration of new or existing factories, reduce the ramp-up and design times, supporting management decisions. Preliminary results are presented and discussed. Research limitations/implications The concept VF model, its architecture and general methodology as an integrated design and development approach, can be adopted and used for VF design and development both for discrete and continuous manufacturing plants. The development and demonstration were limited, however, because real-time synchronisation, 3D laser scanning data and a commonly shared data model, to enable the integration of different VF tools, were not achievable. Originality/value The paper presents a novel VF concept and architecture, which integrates product, process and production systems. Moreover, design and development methods of the concept and its demonstration for a wind turbine manufacturing plant are presented. The paper, therefore, contributes to the information systems and manufacturing engineering field by identifying a novel concept and approach to the effective design and development of a VF and its function in the analysis, design and development of manufacturing systems.

Virtual Factories with Knowledge-Driven Optimization as a New Research Profile

This paper conceptually introduces VF-KDO (Virtual Factories with Knowledge-Driven Optimization, a research profile of the University of Skövde, Sweden, which is underway from 2018-2026. The goal of this research profile is to deliver radical innovations in manufacturing research essential to the design and operation of next-generation manufacturing systems. A unique concept proposed in VF-KDO is: knowledge extracted for decision support is achieved through systematically exploring, e.g., using advanced, interactive data analytics techniques on optimal solutions generated via many-objective optimizations on virtual factory models. As the word “driven” means “motivated” or “manipulated”, so does KDO have some two-fold meanings: (1) optimizations that aim at generating knowledge, not only mathematically optimal solutions; (2) knowledge-controlled optimizations, instead of some blind/black-box processes. It is this concept of KDO, combining with modular, virtual factory models at different levels, which distinguishes VF-KDO from other related research efforts found internationally and in Sweden. The cutting-edge research topics involved in the research profile and their synergy with the digitalization efforts of the 7 partner companies, in form of the development of an intelligent decision support system, can be used to improve the competiveness of the Swedish manufacturing industry by supporting their holistic, optimal and sustainable decision making.