08-16-2017, 10:51 PM
Manufacturing is an indispensable part of the economy and is the central
activity that encompasses product, process, resources and plant. Nowadays
products are more and more complex, processes are highly-sophisticated
and use micro-technology and Mechatronic, the market demand (lot sizes)
evolves rapidly so that we need a flexible and agile production. Moreover
manufacturing enterprises may be widely distributed geographically and
linked conceptually in terms of dependencies and material, information and
knowledge flowsIn this complex and evolutive environment, industrialists must know
about their processes before trying them in order to get it right the first time.
To achieve this goal, the use of a virtual manufacturing environment will
provide a computer-based environment to simulate individual
manufacturing processes and the total manufacturing enterprise. Virtual
Manufacturing systems enable early optimization of cost, quality and time
drivers, achieve integrated product, process and resource design and finally
achieve early consideration of producibility and affordability.
The aim of this paper is to present an updated vision of Virtual
Manufacturing (VM) through different aspects. As, since 10 years, several
projects and workshops have dealt with the Virtual Manufacturing thematic,
we will first define the objectives and the scope of VM and the domains that
are concerned. The expected technological benefits of VM will also been
presented.
In a second part, we will present the socio-economic aspects of VM.
This study will take into account the market penetration of several tools with
respect to their maturity, the difference in term of effort and level of detail
between industrial tools and academic research. Finally the expected
economic benefits of VM will be presented.
The last part will describe the trends and exploitable results in machine
tool industry (research and development towards the 'Virtual Machine Tool'),
automotive (Digital Product Creation Process to design the product and the
manufacturing process) and aerospace.