Factory-X – a sovereign data room for mechanical and industrial engineering

The objective: flexible, modular production environments

The desire to customize products according to customer requirements and shortened product life cycles require a flexibilization and modularization of production environments. The use case Modular Production, led by Fraunhofer IOSB, addresses two sections:

• the optimized and automated reconfiguration of individual machines
• an agile production process control system that is based on a self-description of the modular production resources and continuously optimizes the execution.

Focus on optimized process control

In this application, the Fraunhofer IOSB worked in particular on a process control optimized for modularly organized production environments. In a first step, it will be possible to enrich orders from the ERP for fully automatic execution by means of an extended self-description.

The project is working on multi-level planning and optimization processes so that the process control can react adaptively to field conditions and failures. In particular, condition information provided via the open standards OPC UA and Industry 4.0 Administration Shell (AAS) is to be incorporated directly into the decision-making process.

Your contact for this topic:

Andreas Ebner, Group Manager Adaptive Production Systems

Objective: Quickly find alternative suppliers – make supply chains more resilient

Manufacturing as a Service (MaaS) supports the transition to flexible and resilient supply chains. By automatically matching required and available manufacturing capacities, tools and material inventories, the MaaS concept helps manufacturers to quickly and easily find alternative suppliers. This makes it possible to set up new supply chains more efficiently and strengthens resilience to unexpected disruptions – an important step on the way to a resilient production environment.

Manufacturer Information Service: Making offers and manufacturing capacities visible

The Information Management and Control Technology (ILT) department of the Fraunhofer IOSB supports this approach as a scientific partner. With the development of the Manufacturer Information Service (MIS), we are creating a digital solution that enables manufacturers to make their offers and manufacturing capacities visible in a targeted manner. The MIS facilitates matchmaking between suppliers and potential customers, thus simplifying the search for new partners and supply chains.

With MaaS and the MIS, companies benefit from flexible, future-proof supply chain management and optimized access to production resources.

MIS on Github

Your contact for this topic:

Felix Schöppenthau, Group Modeling and Networked Systems

Climate-friendly and grid-supportive optimization of production

Our Ilmenau institute branch, Fraunhofer IOSB-AST, is actively involved in the “Energy Consumption and Load Management” use case. The aim is to optimize energy use, reduce the carbon footprint and ensure grid-friendly production, whereby industrial companies and the energy industry are to be connected via a data room.

The Fraunhofer IOSB-AST is developing the capability “Load Management”, which combines energetic flexibilities from the production processes with flexibilities available on site through energy storage. The resulting flexibilities can be used to increase self-sufficiency, to avoid peak loads or to offer energy to energy suppliers and grid operators. To do this, the production processes and the entire energy system of a company are analyzed first. Then the requirements for the reference architecture are developed and the capability load management is validated. An implementation concept for holistic energy management is being developed in collaboration with DMG MORI.

For more information and contact details on this topic:

Factory-X project page of the Fraunhofer IOSB-AST

Supporting the circular economy with digital twins

The aim of the use case is to extend the time that machines and components spend in the value creation network. To do this, the information gap regarding product status data must be closed. This gap arises from the lack of options for continuous data collection and standardized data exchange between companies. Based on fundamental standards, an R app is being developed that evaluates and recommends R scenarios for the further or secondary use of components and machines.

As a scientific partner, the Information Management and Production Control (ILT) department is providing advice on digital ecosystems such as digital twins based on AAS (Asset Administration Shell) in the “Circular Economy” use case and is actively involved in data modeling. One goal is to derive a generic data model for the circular economy from the application-specific data, which can then be standardized by the Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA). This enables long-term use of the data model, from which both project partners and external companies can benefit. In addition, the ILT department provides the FA³ST service, which can be used as an AAS server when developing R-App software.

Your contact for this topic:

Dr.-Ing. Michael Baumann, Group Smart Factory Systems