TOWARDS A VIRTUAL FACTORY PROTOTYPE

A virtual factory should represent most of the features and operations of the corresponding real factory. Some of the key features of the virtual factory include the ability to assess performance at multiple resolutions and generate analytics data similar to what is possible in a real factory. One should be able to look at the overall factory performance and be able to drill down to a machine and analyze its performance. It will require a large amount of effort and expertise to build such a virtual factory. This paper describes an effort to build a multiple resolution model of a manufacturing cell. The model provides the ability to study the performance at the cell level, machine level, or the process level. The benefits and limitations of the presented approach and future research directions are also described.