Siemens 2007 Annual Report Download - page 51

Industry 51
Virtual planning and
simulation – from
the product to the
overall manufactur-
ing organ ization and
individual factory
fl oor machines –
reduces prototype
costs, cuts time-to-
market and improves
product quality.
The intelligent factory
The manufacturing industry is on the threshold of a new era: The
intelligent factory – which will slash time-to-market by digitizing
and integrating entire production processes, from the fi rst idea
to the fi nished product – is just around the corner.
Leveraging recent advances in simulation technolo-
gy, the intelligent factory will soon make it possible
to translate products and manufacturing processes
visualized, designed and tested in a virtual environ-
ment into their real-world counterparts. The result:
optimized workfl ows, faster planning and imple-
mentation, virtually limitless production fl exibility
and substantial cost savings.
The idea of computer-integrated manufacturing –
that is, of digitally interlinking the data for entire
product and production lifecycles – goes back to the
1980s. At that time, computers, databases and com-
munications networks were not powerful enough to
bring the concept to fruition. But since then major
advances have been made in computer integration.
Computer-aided 3D visualization and simulation,
for example, have long been standard tools for new
product design.
As a result, complex products can now be tested in
a virtual world under true-to-life conditions – a
technique that’s used, for instance, to develop and
optimize the effi ciency of turbine blades and wind
turbines without the need for expensive real-world
testing.
Siemens’ Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) plat-
form comprises a proven, highly successful range
of products and systems designed to effi ciently au-
tomate all the production processes in the real-
world factory. Excellent progress has already been
made in merging the virtual and real-life environ-
ments. But there’s still a gap in the production life-
cycle between the idea phase – in which products
are fi rst conceived and developed with the help of
systems like computer-aided design – and the pro-
duction phase – which takes place in both virtual
and brick-and-mortar factories. The reason: soft-
ware tools with incompatible interfaces continue to
create barriers to data transmission.
From idea to fi nished product in record time
This is where the intelligent factory comes in: It
will be able to integrate the digital planning data
for any product – whether an automobile or a glass
bottle – with the planning data for the real-world
factory. The entire manufacturing process can be
generated and simulated on the PC together with
the new product. Real-life production begins only
after products have been manufactured and fully
optimized in the virtual factory. In addition, several
product versions can be tested simultaneously
since different development steps can sometimes
run parallel. Together, these factors dramatically
shorten the transition from development to pro-
duction – the most costly and time-consuming step
in conventional manufacturing processes – and en-
able the intelligent factory to adapt more quickly
to changing market requirements and ever-shorter
product cycles.
But the intelligent factory can do more than just
link product and factory planning. As a comprehen-
sive network of digital models and methods, it also
eliminates the discontinuities between virtual plan-
Answers for industry.