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Procedia CIRP 33 (2015) 111 114

9th CIRP Conference on Intelligent Computation in Manufacturing Engineering - CIRP ICME '14

Engineering Environment for Production System Planning

in Small and Medium Enterprises
David Goerziga*, Dominik Luckeb, Juergen Lenza, Timo Dennerb, Michael Lickefetta,b,
Thomas Bauernhansla,b
a

Institute of Industrial Manufacturing and Management (IFF), University of Stuttgart, Nobelstrasse 12, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
b
Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA, Nobelstrasse 12, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 711 970 1995, E-mail address: David.Goerzig@ipa.fraunhofer.de

Abstract
Today, factories have to be adapted permanently in order to follow the developments towards fast changing customer demands and faster life
cycles of products. Key aspects to cope with these developments are the reduction of the unit costs and the planning duration as well as the
improvement of the planning quality. In order to overcome these challenges, digital tools can support all phases of factory and process
planning. Most of them provide a wide range of functionalities, which require a large invest in software and high operation costs to use them
efficiently. Often, small and medium enterprises (SME) cannot afford such invests and operation costs. Therefore, new digital factory planning
tools tailored for SMEs supporting the production system planning are required. Main goal of the WiES-Pro project, funded by the Ministry
of Finance & Economics Baden-Wrttemberg, was to develop an engineering environment for production system planning suitable for SMEs.
The WiES-Pro approach connects small specific software tools for production system planning in an integrated platform, capable to share
information and knowledge easily. The challenges in the development are to cope with both the heterogeneous data from different sources like
machine master data, work plans or product data and the applicability to SMEs. This paper presents the results of the project, consisting of the
approach and its implementation. Also the architecture of the browser-based platform and the developed digital factory planning tools for
priority graph optimization, assembly process time planning, similarity-based product search and material flow simulation are presented
shortly.
Published
by Elsevier
This is anB.V.
open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
2014 The
Authors.
PublishedB.V.
by Elsevier
Peer-review
under responsibility of the International Scientific Committee of 9th CIRP ICME Conference".
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the International Scientific Committee of 9th CIRP ICME Conference
Keywords: Production system planning; process planning; digital factory tools;

1. Introduction
Today, factories have to operate in a highly dynamic
environment. The trend towards high customization of
products with an increasing number of variants, the
globalization of market structures and shorter product life
cycles require a permanent adaption of the factory to the
current situation. In this turbulent environment only robust
and flexible factories survive [1,2,3]. Key aspects to cope
with these developments are the reduction of the unit costs
and the planning duration as well as the improvement of the
planning quality [4]. Life cycle-based approaches for products
and factories help to overcome these challenges. This requires
the availability of data along the whole product and factory

life cycle. Here, digital tools support all phases of factory and
process planning.
2. Motivation
While large enterprises actively use tools of the digital
factory, many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have not
yet engaged with this topic [5]. This is mainly a result of the
gap between expenditures for capital and license costs, know
how as well as lack of experts [5] and the generated output in
form of improvements like planning quality and quantity [6].
The solutions offer too many functions and are too complex
and expensive for small and medium enterprises [7]. But
through the trend of globalization even small and medium
enterprises are part of global supply chains. As a consequence

2212-8271 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the International Scientific Committee of 9th CIRP ICME Conference
doi:10.1016/j.procir.2015.06.021

112

David Goerzig et al. / Procedia CIRP 33 (2015) 111 114

they are confronnted with thee same challlenges as laarge

with
enterrprises [8]. Esspecially whenn it comes to cooperation w
large enterprises, ssmall and meedium enterpriises are forcedd to
adaptt digital solutiions [9].
Sm
mall and meedium enterpprises need fast
f
and sim
mple
solutions that can be used instaantly. As a co
onsequence, m
most
s
Thee planning knnowof the SMEs use ooffice-based solutions.
wned by a few
w employees and
a is not wriitten
how is mostly ow
n or defined inn a clear proccess [9]. In sm
mall and meddium
down
enterrprises factoryy planning iss still accom
mplished by ccost
savin
ng 2D-planninng tools like AutoCad
A
or Microsoft Vissio
[6,10
0]. However, these tools are
a isolated applications.
a
T
This
comp
plicates the exxchange of daata along the product
p
life cyycle
[7]. Therefore, neew digital faactory plannin
ng environmeents
tailorred for SMEs supporting thhe production system plannning
are reequired.
3. Sta
ate of the Artt
In
n the field of ddigital factoryy planning, seeveral approacches
coverring different aspects of thhe planning phases have too be
menttioned. An ovverview of thee different app
proaches is giiven
by Landherr [11] and shortly prresented in th
he following. The
proach aims at
grid engineering for manuffacturing app
nagement of the
faciliitating planniing process and the man
inform
mation of thee product and factory life cycle
c
by adaptting
ideass and technollogies from grid
g
computin
ng [13,12]. O
Other
appro
oaches for diggital factory planning are presented in [5]
and [14] interlinkking the proceesses, data, systems
s
and uuser
ugh a suited data management platform. Commerrcial
throu
plann
ning platform
ms of the diggital factory such
s
as Siem
mens
PLM
M Teamcenteer and Technomatix [15], Dellmia

3DEX
XPERIENCE [16], PTC Windchill
W
[17
7] provide a laarge
numb
ber of planniing functionss. Due to th
heir developm
ment
historry to match the requirem
ments of the automotive and
aerosspace industryy they are overrsized in mostt cases for SM
MEs.
4. Ap
pproach
Th
he main idea of WiES-Pro is to supportt the planner in a
SME
E with inform
mation and knnowledge in different phaases
durin
ng production system plannning with digittal tools. Goalls of
the WiES-Pro
W
envvironment aree to improve planning qual
ality,
shortten the plannning durationn and reducce the costs of
produ
uction system
m planning in SMEs. The WiES--Pro
appro
oach consists of an expanndable suite of
o several SM
MEtailorred digital facctory tools wiith a central data
d
hub form
ming
the WiES-Pro
W
pllanning envirronment. Maain functionss of
WiES
S-Pro data huub are to stoore and proviide synchroniized
produ
uct data, worrk plans or extracted
e
work orders to the
differrent applicatioons, see Figurre 1.
Th
he key advanttage of WiES-Pro is the reduced numbeer of
functtions in the single conneected applicaations. Duringg a
plann
ning activity sseveral conneected applicattions are appllied.
This approach leadds to differentt advantages for
f SMEs. Duue to
mall number oof functions per
p application
n, the trainingg for
the sm
the employees
e
is non time-connsuming training and easyy for

the employees.
e
Allso the factorry specific insstantiation off the
WiES
S-Pro environment is simpllified.

Figure 1 WiES--Pro Approach

5. Im
mplementation
n
Prremise for the implementatiion of the WiiES-Pro approoach
is to use SME cap
pable, non-exppensive, stand
dard softwaree. In
s
imp
mplemented components
c
the following sections,
are
preseented.
5.1. WiES-Pro
W
Datta hub
In
n order to provide synchhronized info
ormation for the
differrent planning applications,, a data hub is
i required. With
W
the focus
fo
on SME
E, the major ccriteria for thee implementattion
are an
a easy setup
p, configuratiion and custo
omization to the
speciific factory. Therefore, as found
dation for the
impleementation, th
he idea is to use a docum
ment managem
ment
system, capable to
o manage list data and docu
uments. List data
d
n this case the factory struucture, machin
ne master dataa or
are in
bill of materials of the prooducts or pro
oduction ordders.
uments in this case comprrise CAD filles or simulattion
Docu
modeel files or NC
C programs. FFor the impleementation off the
WiES
S-Pro data hu
ub Microsoft SharePoint has been choosen
due to good SM
ME capabilityy. Main advaantages are low
ditionally it offfers
requiirements of caapital and knoow-how. Add
high security stan
ndards. It diisposes of a Microsoft SQL
S
nagement systtem.
Serveer, which is a relational ddatabase man
Figurre 2 shows th
he WiES-Pro data hub and
d four exemplary
tools which are preesented in the following.
harePoint provvides the fou
undation for data
d
The Microsoft Sh
f
manaagement, userr administratioon as well siimple work flow
manaagement, prroject manaagement and
d collaborattion
functtions. On top
p the WiES--Pro data mo
odel as welll as
application specifiic websites aare instantiateed, providing the
applications, thee applicatioon specificc synchroniized
mation and kn
nowledge. Thhe planner then
n can transferr the
inform
know
w-how of finisshed projects, identify simiilarities to earrlier
projeects or analyzee the status at the shop floo
or. The conneccted
applications are ex
xecuted out frrom the portall either locallyy as
a clieent or directly as a web appllication.

David Goerzig et al. / Procedia CIRP 33 (2015) 111 114

113

Figuree 2 Structure of WiES-Pro

W

5.2
2. NC-Analyzeer
The idea of thhe NC-analyzer is to help th
he process plaanners
of SMEs to finnd similar parrts compared to the part w
which
neeeds to be plannned. This iss done by anaalyzing NC-fiiles of
preevious parts aand calculatess attributes ou
ut of the re-ennacted
too
ol movement. These attribbutes are then
n compared tto the
currrent part. Affterwards, thee similarity search
s
algorithhm is
useed to identify the part withh the best maatch. This appproach
willl help to deevelop the fieeld of Compu
uter-Aided Prrocess
Plaanning (CAP
PP). The im
mplementation
n is done with
MA
ATLAB and w
was validated using current production da
data by
a German
G
SME with a turninng process. As
A a conclusioon, the
NC
C-analyzer prototype toool was used
d successfullly to
dem
monstrate thee feasibility of the develop
ped method. F
Future
acttivities are exxpanding to other G-Codee-based produuction
pro
ocesses.
5.3
3. Layout plannning and matterial flow sim
mulation mode l
ediitor
On
ne of the mainn targets of the
t WiES-Pro
o environmentt is to
imp
prove the quaality of factorry planning. The
T layout plaanning
is highly influeenced by the material flow
w of the prooducts.
nner during llayout
Therefore, the iidea is to suppport the plan
plaanning activitties with eaasy to generrate material flow
sim
mulation models. The moddelling of maaterial flow m
models
usu
ually requires high skills. Therefore,
T
thee simulation m
model
is graphically
g
created and editted as part of the layout plaanning
acttivities. The modelling is based on the value sstream
vissualization forr machines and
a storages. In addition tto the
shaape of eachh machine and
a
storage in the layoout a
corrresponding value stream object can be added.
a
It consiists of
graaphic represenntation and atttributes. It is implemented as an
Au
utoCAD-add-oon (Figure 3).

material flow simu

ulation model edittor
Figure 3 Layout planning and ma

W
The data inside the objects arre synchronizzed with the WiESo data hub. Th
he object dataa of the modeel are implem
mented
Pro
as machine
m
and storage masteer data lists in the WiES-Proo data
hub
b. The CAD--model is alsoo able to imp
port data from
m and
exp
port data to the SharePoinnt. Thus, it iss possible to create
rou
ugh layouts an
nd to specify thhem afterward
ds.
Ad
dditionally, thee tool is the iinterconnectin
ng link betweeen the
wid
de spread factory layouts iin AutoCAD and the WiE
ES-Pro
datta hub. It prov
vides positionning data of stock
s
and techhnical
resources on the shop floor for
or the simulatio
on.
5.4
4. Generative material
m
flow simulation
The aim of thee generative material flow
w simulation is to
v
off the previou
us layout plaanning
reaalize a fast validation
witthout any modelling know
w-how. Thereffore, the WiE
ES-Pro
env
vironment usses an autom
mated simulaation on bassis of
stan
ndard models which is direectly connecteed to the WiE
ES-Pro
datta hub. The planner perform
ms various ex
xperiments thhrough

114

David Goerzig et al. / Procedia CIRP 33 (2015) 111 114

adaptting the initial values of the simulatio

on. This cann be
realizzed either byy using the different app
plications of the
WiES
S-Pro environnment such as
a the layoutt planning orr by
manu
ual adaptionss in the WiE
ES-Pro data hub. To furt
rther
simplify the validaation process the in- and output
o
parameeters
he simulationn were reduuced to the most imporrtant
of th
indicators. As a rresult, the num
mber of posssible settings and
thus the
t preparatioon time is reduuced.

nowledgemen
nts
Ackn

5.5. Machine-Data
M
a logging

Referrences

Th
he operating aand machine data logging is an applicaation
which
h is especiallyy designed forr SME. Throu
ugh its web-baased
desig
gn which is shown in Figure
F
4 it is
i compatiblee to
misceellaneous harddware devicess. Main idea is
i the applicaation
on a tablet or a sm
martphone whiich is placed near
n the machhine.
The operator logss his actions with the heelp of the toouch
e
the status of ordders,
screeen. He can rregister for example
break
kdowns, quallity failures or
o shortage of
o material. The
operaating and macchine data loggging helps the
t enterprise s to
verify
fy the results oof the simulatiion in the real production.

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Figure 4 Machinne data logging

With
W the application the operrator is enableed to log differ
erent
condition of the m
machine with thhe help of a user interface. It is
possiible to relate tthe data to diifferent machiines or operattors.
Durin
ng the logginng process, thhe operator permanently
p
ggets
inform
mation aboutt the current order
o
and thee developmennt of
the overall equipm
ment effectivenness of the maachine. (OEE)
6. Co
onclusion and
d Outlook
Th
he presented WiES-Pro environment for producction
system planning supports thhe planner in
n a SME w
with
inform
mation and knowledge in different phases durring
produ
uction system
m planning. Goals of the WiES--Pro
envirronment are to improve planning
p
quaality, shorten the
plann
ning duration and the costs of production
n system plannning
in SM
MEs. With thee focus on thee application on SMEs a ssuite
of diigital factory tools with a reduced num
mber of functiions
interllinked throughh a data hub has
h been develloped.
Th
he implementtation of addditional plann
ning applicatiions
evolv
ving the WiES
S-Pro environm
ment represen
nts the main toopic
of ou
ur future workk.

Th
his research development was funded
d by the BaddenWrtttemberg Min
nistry of Finaance and Eco
onomics (MF
FW)
withiin the Funding Action WiES-Pro - Wissensbasiierte
Engin
neering-Systemumgebung fr die Planung von
Produ
uktionssystem
men (Fund Noo. 017-162639
9).