BRINGING REAL AND VIRTUAL WORLDS TOGETHER IN THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS

Abstract

A wide spectrum of IT-tools and a variety of different systems are currently in place to provide best-in-class solutions for planning and executing manufacturing tasks. Among such applications, simulation systems play a major role in the areas of manufacturing planning and quality assurance, as well as process optimization. These systems are found in most production environments. Typically, simulation systems help to anticipate the behavior of physical systems and review the design and planning data. Today, the major automotive companies and their IT-vendors work on concepts to cover the entire process of production. However, there are still technological limitations originating from the inadequate information flow between the real and virtual worlds. A number of research projects focus on the improvement of planning processes by feeding information on life cycle conditions back to the simulation environment or bringing simulation functionality closer to manufacturing processes. The following article extracts some examples from the area of simulation systems research with a focus on the manufacturing environment and related task areas. Application cases are presented as sample scenarios for the integrated operation of virtual and real processes.