Virtual manufacturing as a way for the factory of the future

Virtual Manufacturing represents the emerging approach the enterprises can use to improve their processes, introducing new products more quickly in the market in a cost effective way. The fundamental idea is to create an integrated and synthetic environment, composed of software tools and systems such as Virtual Reality and Simulation to support such processes. This paper presents the Virtual Manufacturing (VM) environment, highlighting the potential application areas and the resulting benefits. The role of Simulation Lab and ITIA-CNR in applying the VM is discussed, the research activities currently carried out by the institutes are presented and two significant cases developed as example of the applicability of the concept are shown.

[1]  Carlos Alberto Ravelli.  Análise da interoperabilidade de dados para a implementação de um ambiente de manufatura virtual , 2003 .

[2]  Prashant Banerjee,et al.  Virtual Manufacturing: Virtual Reality and Computer Vision Techniques , 2001 .

[3]  F. Jovane,et al.  Towards a new model of sustainable production : Manufuturing , 1996 .

[4]  Jianxin Jiao,et al.  Virtual prototyping for customized product development , 1997 .

[5]  Douglas C. Schmidt,et al.  Object Interconnections Comparing Alternative Programming Techniques for Multi-threaded CORBA Servers (Column 7) , 1996 .

[6]  Arthur José Vieira Porto,et al.  Alternativas de utilização de formatos neutros de arquivos para habilitar a interoperabilidade de dados em um ambiente de manufatura virtual , 2003 .

[7]  Steve Vinoski,et al.  CORBA: integrating diverse applications within distributed heterogeneous environments , 1997, IEEE Commun. Mag..

[8]  Hans-Jörg Bullinger,et al.  Rapid product development—an overview , 2000 .

[9]  Karsten Mecklenburg.  Seamless integration of layout and simulation , 2001, Proceeding of the 2001 Winter Simulation Conference (Cat. No.01CH37304).

[10]  L. Abdel-Malek,et al.  The virtual manufacturing paradigm: The impact of IT/IS outsourcing on manufacturing strategy , 2002 .

[11]  Debasish Dutta,et al.  An Assessment of Data Requirements and Data Transfer Formats for Layered Manufacturing , 1998 .

[12]  K. Haverlock.  OBJECT SERIALIZATION, JAVA, AND C++ , 1998 .