What is Digital Factory?

What is Digital Factory?

Digital factory refers to a new production organization mode that simulates, evaluates, and optimizes the entire production process in a computer virtual environment based on the data related to the entire product life cycle, and further extend it to the entire product life cycle.

The Core Features of the Digital Factory

The core features of the digital factory are the intellectualization of products, automation of production, integration of information flow, and material flow. The leading manufacturing enterprises are adopting a range of advanced technologies to digitize production and even the entire supply chain. These technologies include big data analytics solutions, end-to-end real-time planning and interconnection, automated systems, and digital twin. The efficiency will be increased and enterprises are able to mass-produce highly customized products with these technologies.

Reasons for Build a Digital Factory

The construction of a digital factory can meet the differentiated and customized needs of consumers through a series of methods such as information technology, extensive interconnection, information interaction, and process reengineering.

The Core System of Digital Factory

The core of the digital factory is the comprehensive integration of ERP, PLM, MOM, WMS, and DCS. By taking MOM/MES (Manufacturing Operation System) as the central core to form an intelligent manufacturing innovation platform.

Through the deep integration of five systems help to clearly define the system business boundary.

1. PLM: The management of knowledge-based assets of enterprises can realize product data management, project management, change management, collaborative management, standardized management, and security management. It can provide manufacturing enterprises with a scalable R & D management platform.

Integration of PLM and ERP: PLM can transfer PBOM and process route to ERP. The ERP can combine the processing center and cost center and automatically generate CBON based on the standard cost, suggested cost, and current cost.

Integration of PLM and MOM: PLM can pass MBOM and SOP to MOM and guide MOM in production management.

When the product design changes, the change data will be real-time synchronization to ERP, MOM system.

2. ERP: Comprehensively integrated the three major flows of the enterprise: logistics, cash flow, and information flow. There have one thing that needs to note is that  ERP should save the production results of the manufacturing end for financial cost accounting, instead of doing too much management.

Integration with MOM: Transfer the basic production data (materials and sales orders) to MOM. APS will transmit the decomposed manufacturing order back to ERP. The MES will transmit the production quantity and material consumption quantity back to ERP according to a certain period.

Integration with WMS: Real-time synchronization of material base data, warehouse base data, and inventory quantity.

3. MOM: Manufacturing Operation Management system. The act of converting raw materials or parts into products by coordinating and managing the resources of an enterprise such as management personnel, equipment, materials, and energy. It involves managing the behaviors performed by physical devices, people, and information systems. It also covers activities related to the management of scheduling, capacity, product definition, historical information, production facility information, and related resource status information.

4. WMS: The integrated use of the management system brings the benefit to the corresponding batch management, material correspondence, inventory check, and quality control inspection through inbound, outbound, warehouses allocation, Inventory allocation, and other management methods. It effectively controls and tracks the whole process of logistics and cost management.

5. DCS: SCADA+PLC production site control system.