VFF · Holistic, extensible, scalable and standard Virtual Factory Framework

The project uttermost objective is to foster and strengthen the primacy of Future European Manufacturing by defining the next generation Virtual Factory Framework. The VFF will promote major time and cost savings while increasing performance in the design, management, evaluation and reconfiguration of new or existing facilities, supporting the capability to simulate dynamic complex behaviour over the whole life cycle of Factory, approached as a complex long living Product. Thus the project will research and implement the underlying models and ideas at the foundation of a new conceptual framework designed to implement the next generation Virtual Factory, also meant to lay the basis for future applications in this research area. This approach identifies four key Pillars: a Reference Model for factory planning, based on the new industrial key paradigm “Factory as a Product”; the VF Manager core, meant to handle the common space of abstract objects representing the Factory; a set of decoupled Functional Modules for supporting the factory design, reconfiguration, evaluation, management, … and a Integration of Knowledge at different layers as engine for the modules aiming at giving reality to the envisioned Learning Factory. The Virtual Factory, deployed according to the VFF concept, has to be permanently synchronised with the Real Factory aiming to achieve time and cost savings in the design, ramp-up, management, evaluation and reconfiguration of the Real Production itself. The proposed pillars foster the implementation of a holistic, modular, open and scalable Virtual Factory meant to achieve clear, well identified and measurable goals for the real production system according to quantitative indicators/measures: Time for factory design, re-configuration, re-engineering -50%; Ramp-up time -30%; Capability Index Cp >=2.0. Moreover, a strong qualitative factor has to be considered: Democratisation.