Semantic Virtual Factory supporting interoperable modelling and evaluation of production systems

TLDR: The paper shows how a shared ontology-based framework can be used to generate consistent 3D virtual environments and discrete event simulation models, demonstrating this way how the proposed solution can provide an interoperable backbone for heterogeneous software tools.

About: This article is published in CIRP Annals.The article was published on 2013-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 71 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Semantic data model & Interoperability.

Figures

Figure 3. 3D representation of the test-case in the GIOVE-VF module

Figure 2. Integration of a new Digital Factory tool in VFF

Figure 1. The architecture of the Virtual Factory Framework

Figure 4.Representation of the test-case in Plant Simulation

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What have the authors contributed in "Semantic virtual factory supporting interoperable modelling and evaluation of production systems" ?

This paper addresses the application of a semantic data model for virtual factories to support the design and the performance evaluation of manufacturing systems, while exploiting the interoperability between various Digital Enterprise Technology tools. The paper shows how a shared ontology-based framework can be used to generate consistent 3D virtual environments and discrete event simulation models, demonstrating this way how the proposed solution can provide an interoperable backbone for heterogeneous software tools. 

Q2. What is the purpose of the VFF virtual environment?

The commercial off-the-shelf simulation package Plant Simulation by Siemens PLM was also integrated in VFF to support the performance evaluation of production systems. 

Q3. What is the purpose of the GIOVE-VF virtual tool?

GIOVE-VF has been developed in C++ and can import/export ontologies serialized in RDF/XML format thanks to a specific VfConn that was developed using a C++ library named VfConnectorLibCpp providing functionalities to parse, create and modify the ontologies by exploiting an internal map between OWL classes/restrictions and C++ classes/methods. 

Q4. What is the main challenge in manufacturing today?

One of the main challenges in manufacturing today is to design and operate systems producing a high variety of customized products as efficiently and quickly as possible, while dealing with uncertain and highly volatile demands. 

Q5. What is the main challenge of managing manufacturing companies and systems?

Managing manufacturing companies and systems requires both long-term and short-term decisions, which all deeply influence the performance of these firms. 

Q6. What is the process of creating the simulation model?

The creation of the simulation model is performed automatically as well as the initialization of the parameters and the model runs. 

Q7. What is the funding for the research reported in this paper?

The research reported in this paper has been funded by the European Union 7th FP (FP7/2007–2013) under the grant agreement No: NMP2 2010-228595, Virtual Factory Framework (VFF), the grant agreement No: 262044, VISION Advanced Infrastructure for Research (VISIONAIR) and National Office for Research and Technology (NKTH) grant "Digital, real-time enterprises and networks", OMFB-01638/2009. 

Q8. What is the current configuration of the virtual environment?

In the current configuration the only data required by the user is the production order in a form of list indicating the products to be produced. 

Q9. What are the main types of resources used in the VFDM?

These resources can be human operators, machines, transportation and logistics related devices, etc. • Process, modelling the data regarding the processes that are adopted by the system to directly (e.g. manufacturing system, assembly system) or indirectly (e.g. logistic processes, maintenance processes) transform a product. 

Q10. What is the purpose of this paper?

This paper introduces a research work aiming at homogenizing the modelling basis of production system and on this normalized foundation allowing the smooth interoperation of different DF tools that can be both commercial and self-developed. 

Q11. What is the main pillar of the VFF architecture?

As presented in Figure 1, the VFF architecture is based on three main pillars: • Virtual Factory Data Model (VFDM), i.e. a coherent, standard,extensible, and common data model for the representation of factory objects related to production systems, resources, processes and products, i.e. the Data & Knowledge. 

Q12. How can a digital factory be integrated into a building?

The production line of the industrial case can be designed and placed in its building by using 3D software tools, like for instance GIOVE Virtual Factory (GIOVE-VF) [21]. 

Q13. What is the definition of a VFDM?

the VFDM was designed as a set of related ontologies [17] serialized as Web Ontology Language OWL) files according to Resource Description Framework (RDF/XML) [19]. 

Q14. What are the main areas covered by the VFDM?

As an overview, the following main areas are covered by the ontology classes defined in the VFDM: • Product, modelling the data related to the product, i.e. theproduction goal of the factory. 

Q15. What is the definition of the ontology?

The ontology has been developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and has been approved as an international standard in the document (ISO 18629) [9]. 

Q16. What is the purpose of the VFDM process?

This process frees the user from manually creating the simulation model that is automatically generated from the initial VFDM-compliant factory project. 

Q17. What is the purpose of the paper?

This paper has presented a framework to enable interoperability between software tools supporting the design and performance evaluation of a factory.