Towards the Smart Factory – Status and open issues

Manufacturing companies follow the trend towards mass customization and must operate in an increasingly turbulent environment. The variety of factors that influence the production technology, such as fluctuating demand and commodity prices, high product complexity, high cost pressures and short product life cycles, can not be fully thought ahead at the time of the construction of a machine or plant. Additionally there is an increasing environmental awareness in major importing countries of mechanical and plant engineering.
As a consequence future production systems must be characterized by high adaptability, resource-efficiency and user friendliness. Such a smart factory considers all components of a production system: the product, the resources, the people in the factory as well as customers and suppliers. For a smart factory the usage of Information and Communication technologies and intelligent automation is of high importance. This talk shows how the needed intelligence comes into the technical systems at the factory floor. Some examples of the leading edge technology cluster quot;intelligent technical systems OstWestfalen-Lippe it’s OWLquot; are introduced. In this cluster, which is an integral part of germans high-tech strategy, 178 partners from research and industry are working on solutions for the smart factory and smart products.nbsp; Based on real-world industrial applications methods and technologies for the self-configuration and self-optimization of machines and systems are presented. Last but not least still open issues are identified where further research and development effort is needed.