转自：http://www.managingautomation.com/maonline/magazine/read/view/Deep_Dive_The_Digital_Factory_Is_a_Work_in_Progress_27755523
Posted on Thursday, April 02, 2009 10:18:43 AM
In the electronic age, the term "digital factory" may sound like a game played on Wii, where manufacturing is simulated in an animated 3D model and points are scored based on the number of widgets produced. But people in manufacturing, such as Matt Haugh, sales and marketing director at BigToys, a maker of commercial playground equipment, understand the digital factory's significance as a business tool, not a toy.
Haugh experienced a key aspect of the digital factory concept five years ago when his company made a game-changing decision. BigToys, which has been in business for 40 years, had been selling products made exclusively from wood. However, when customers started asking for steel-based products, the company had to make a rapid transition in both its materials and its manufacturing model.
BigToys, which had been outsourcing production, brought everything in-house, turning its Olympia, WA, shipping center into a machine-milling production house. The company also invested in computer-aided design software to determine how to reconfigure every component and part so that the steel footprint would be identical to the wood structure. And the company leveraged its software investment, which included three-dimensional (3D) modeling and visualization, to ensure that the virtual version could be physically manifested using CNC machines on the shop floor.
Within 11 months of embarking on this new business model, the company successfully transformed its product line from wood to steel while minimizing waste.
"We were automating at the same time we were innovating," says Haugh, who cites the impact that Autodesk Inc.'s Inventor and AutoCAD products have had on BigToys' transformation. "The decisions we made were not a result of the software, but the software enabled us to quickly make the changes needed across the entire spectrum of products ... There was a lot going on from an engineering standpoint, but we were able to make it look easy."
A Road Less Traveled
BigToys is just one of many manufacturers now starting its digital factory journey, a pursuit that mixes the virtual with reality for more efficient design and manufacturing processes, less waste, cost savings, and even business transformation. Yet, for many, adopting digital factory technology — which experts say is imperative during the current economic crisis — has been a road less traveled, mainly because it is highly misunderstood.
The digital factory — or digital manufacturing — is not new in terms of technology. Its basic components consist of applications that already exist, including 3D modeling, CAD, simulation software, product lifecycle management (PLM), manufacturing execution systems (MES), and control technology. But each technology vendor comes at the digital factory idea from a different angle, calling it different things — for example, digital prototyping, concurrent engineering, and integrated product process development.
"It's a complicated topic because every company has a different view of the digital factory," says Stefan Linner, vice president of Tecnomatix product marketing at Siemens PLM Software, a major proponent of the digital factory idea.
What differentiates a digital factory deployment, however, is the integration of disparate applications. It is not about simply tying things together through an application programming interface, but, instead, building a synchronized process whereby various applications, such as PLM and MES or simulation and motion control, are working from a common object model or database and continuously feeding information back and forth.
"Digital manufacturing has been around for a while — well, the term has, but the tools being used are very disconnected," says Mike Burkett, vice president at AMR Research. Closing the loop between disparate tools and processes is the critical step that defines digital manufacturing, he says.
Unfortunately, no one — vendors and manufacturers alike — has yet fully realized the digital factory vision because there is no complete, closed loop solution, Burkett says.
"Planning the product, manufacturing the product, checking how well you are doing, and taking action to make corrections" is what makes up the plan-do-check-act sequence of a digital factory setup, Burkett says. But it is a huge undertaking that even the savviest manufacturers struggle with. "I know some of the big automotive companies are doing this, but I haven't been able to find a good example of a company that has brought it all together," he says.
To date, manufacturers such as General Motors, BMW, and Boeing have implemented aspects of a digital factory solution, enlisting the help of a multitude of vendors in every application area. Meanwhile, some of these same vendors are trying to come up with their own pre-integrated digital manufacturing turnkey solutions.
In May 2007, Siemens acquired UGS, the PLM software company, and set to work on what it calls Project Archimedes, an engineering effort that will unite its PLM, automation systems, and motion control in a common data model.
For its part, Dassault Systèmes has struck strategic alliances with Rockwell Automation and Schneider Electric on the control side to form a common object library. Dassault also has a relationship with MES vendor iBASEt and in February announced a minority investment in Intercim, another MES vendor with expertise in the aerospace industry.
Nevertheless, though the big-picture vision can feel overwhelming, proponents say it's best not to wait to get started. "Digital manufacturing is more than a vision, and, from my point of view, there is no excuse to not do it today," says Siemens PLM's Linner. "You can always wait for the next [technology] development or the next version that will do more, but if you look at it that way, why would you ever buy a PC or a phone?"
As it turns out, many manufacturers are not waiting to access the road to the digital factory. In a new Managing Automation
reader poll , 59% of respondents said they are looking into digital factory technology, with manufacturing operations management, CAD/CAM, PLCs, and PLM software topping the list of investments.
British American Tobacco, for example, has turned to a combination of Dassault's MatrixOne Spec Manager PLM system and Apriso's FlexNet MES to help it move into global markets that add new ingredient and branding variables to its mix. "BAT needs something that can manage the material specifications and still have the right information on the shop floor," says Jorge Valdes Scott, IT operations manager at British American Tobacco Mexico, S.A. de C.V., explaining the investment in an integrated PLM-MES solution.
BAT has been working on this integration activity for five years. Similarly, over 50% of MA poll respondents are well under way with their technology deployments, with 22% saying they have been working on them for five years.
But, like 70% of poll respondents, BAT can't pinpoint when it will see a tangible ROI from its preliminary digital manufacturing efforts. Nevertheless, the company is hopeful that its digital factory investments will improve its business performance.
Plenty of Upsides
To that end, 82% of poll respondents expect digital factory technology to improve product quality through a more efficient production process; 74% say it will help the organization become more agile and competitive; 59% see it shortening the time between product design and production; and 56% say it will improve the utilization of factory floor equipment.
"For us, the benefit has been efficiency," BAT's Scott says.
Ultimately, even small steps toward a more digital domain translate into money saved, something every manufacturing enterprise needs nowadays.
A large automotive manufacturer, for example, was building out a line for stamping metal parts, including fenders and doors. The company wanted robots at one end of a line to remove parts from conveyers every two seconds and put them onto racks to be shipped to another factory where they would be welded with other parts. It's a multimillion-dollar process, and, therefore, the automaker needed to analyze each of five suppliers' proposals to ensure that it would actually work.
The manufacturer hired Applied Manufacturing Technologies, an engineering services company, to model each supplier's process using Siemens Tecnomatix digital manufacturing software. The software includes 3D modeling to lay out the line and simulate shop floor workflow.
"We went through each of the models provided and proved that none of the proposals would work," says Jordan Merhib, AMT's director of business development. AMT then digitally created a virtual representation that would work in the physical environment. Based on the virtual commissioning guidelines, the vendors submitted new proposals that were certain to fit the stamping line criteria.
"It was a $40,000 investment for us to do that pre-engineering work, but we saved the car company about $3.5 million," Merhib says.
The Real World
As more manufacturers adopt digital processes, especially for virtual commissioning, their suppliers must learn to work the same way.
Oriental Motor USA Corp., for example, makes motors, speed control systems, cooling fans, and linear and rotary actuators for the medical, food and packaging, semiconductor, and security industries. In order to accommodate customer requirements for more digital prototypes, it has adopted CAD software from ThomasNet, a sister organization of Managing Automation that creates an online catalog of its products represented in a flexible digital model.
The CAD software provides a 3D model of the Oriental Motor product on the company website, and a customer has the ability to download that model into its own CAD software — from such suppliers as Autodesk, Parametric Technology, and Dassault — to see how the part fits in an overall design.
"If you have a 3D model of a machine and you decide you need an actuator, you could go online [to the Oriental Motor website], configure [the part], and drop it into the big design to see how it fits," says Peter Mooney, ThomasNet's product manager of CAD solutions.
It is user-friendly, too, like CAD clip art, Mooney adds, noting that it allows a customer to build a virtual prototype of a conveyor line in a way that is fast and efficient.
For Oriental Motor, the technology enables the company to be seen as a preferred supplier that is easy to do business with. "We were looking to make our business more customer-driven and make the communication easier from the design phase to the production phase," says Kimberly Freisheim, Oriental Motor's sales promotion manager.
In the past, working with customers required faxing drawings back and forth, and even building a physical prototype.
"But now, with the CAD program, our engineers are able to visually see the customer's design and understand the spatial requirements needed," Freisheim says. Not only does this save time and money in the commissioning process, but also Oriental Motor engineers are freed to do more with R&D rather than going back and forth with customers, she says.
On top of that, it's just good for business. "We are getting 20,000 CAD files downloaded each month, and more than 50% of those usually turn into orders," Freisheim says.
Similarly, BigToys used to send a physical scale model with every playground structure delivered to a site. But now it renders an isometric printed model based on the 3D design that Autodesk's Inventor produces. This method enhances quality — assembly instructions are specific to each bolt — and adds a layer of flexibility that was never before available. To that end, BigToys' sales representatives become design collaborators from the field.
"They can sketch out what a landscape looks like, we can spit out a 3D rendering based on the site specification, and turn it around in a day," Haugh says.
Springboard to the Factory
For many manufacturers, digital prototyping is a good place to start as it can also serve as a springboard to push modeling beyond product design and into product manufacturability.
"Our goal is to take a digital prototype into the factory layout," says Hilde Sevens, senior product manager for Autodesk's Manufacturing CIM group. "It's becoming more and more important in the current economic times for manufacturers to be able to experience not just their product before it's real, but also their factory before it's real. There's too much cost and time involved when something goes wrong."
Recently, Novus Energy, LLC, joined Autodesk's AutoCAD Plant 3D beta initiative. Though they are on the right track, Autodesk and others still have some shortfalls that make their virtual technology more game-like than lifelike. Novus and Autodesk are attempting to address this issue.
"For many years I have been dissatisfied with the objects used in such programs, as they do not accurately portray the pumps, compressors, and vessels of the petrochemical users," says Al Burbeck, vice president of engineering and operations at Novus Energy. "There is a long way to go in this effort."
But while plant virtualization may not be ready for prime time, plant process simulation technology has helped Novus in its design of second-generation biofuels processes.
Novus used Invensys Process Systems' PRO/II modeling software to ensure an environmentally responsible design that does not have a negative impact on the bottom line and can even bring the plant online faster.
"Process simulation technology is used to get new plants up and running in the shortest time possible," Burbeck says. "Depending upon the plant you are constructing or retrofitting, PST is today as important throughout the entire process design, equipment specification, shakedown, startup, and operations as a pencil in the hands of a draftsman or chemical engineer with a slide ruler in the past."
PRO/II is a general-purpose, steady state simulator, but Invensys also has dynamic simulation software that mimics an entire plant as if it were operating. This allows a company to check out a control system before building a plant, as well as different manufacturing processes.
Novus, for example, is designing a renewable gas-to-liquid technology platform that requires a detailed understanding of thermal and fluid dynamics to avoid catastrophic failure due to a runaway reactor or a failed reformer tube, Burbeck explains.
The good news is that tools are available to perform a comprehensive simulation, as well as outline "what if" scenarios by changing operating conditions — virtually. And while the digital factory vision may not be fully realized today, it's only a matter of time before all of these tools come together to change the way manufacturers work.
"The digital age arrived some time ago," Burbeck says. "Its only limitations are the power of microprocessors, programmers, and human creativity. We are, and will continue to be, more reliant on the use of this technology."
See also:
Deep Dive Technology Directions: Building the Digital Factory Piece by Piece
Expert Q&A: Digital Factory Shortens Product Launch Cycle
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