The Open Factory Twin (OFacT) project aims to provide a digital twin for production and logistics environments. Digital Twins (DT) represent their environment as a virtual model of all relevant parts of the real system. OFact is meant to support the design, planning and operation control of discrete material flow systems and thus supporting management of the system during the whole life cycle.
Coming from the challenges such as ...
- shorter production life cycles
- frequently changing demands
- complex supply chains
- increasing number of possible product variants
- regulations, legal requirements and restrictions
... companies are faced constantly with complex decision that often needs a dynamic evaluation and comparison of various
scenarios. Often detailed simulation models are the only way to get a reliable evaluation of costs and performance. Data
of the real world has to be integrated regularly into the simulation models to keep them up-to-date.
In the design (or re-design) phase of a production system, the digital twin can be used to simulate different design
alternatives and evaluate them even before the real system exists. When the real system is in operation, the digital twin
can be used in an iterative way between planning orders and resources and controlling the plan during operations dealing
with disruptions in real time.
