MESA International's 'Where Manufacturing Meets IT' blog is written by MESA Working Groups and Members. Topics include how and why to use IT in Manufacturing, Smart Manufacturing, MES/MOM, analytics and much more.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Factories of the Future
Dr. Detlef Zuehlke talked about the Internet enabled everything - SmartHomes, SmartCars, a SmartHospital, and SmartOffice, and SmartFactory showing how to use newer technologies to become more agile. Complexity is a major challenge - but by making devices abstract and communications and power wireless, some of the complexity and sequential planning goes away. Now 22 partners and 10 sponsors have after a few years led to the SmartFactory. The SmartFactory is now fully tested and working for the past 3 weeks - making colored liquid soap. They also perform R&D projects and offer information panels on viz. RFID, wireless, safety & security. Check out the live webcam at: http://www.smartfactory.de/webcam.de.htm - may sometimes be a still picture due to German law. Over 30 companies are involved - so this could be moving into broader application soon!
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Being asked about the major value added for manufacturers, Prof.Dr Zuehlke said that it's about increasing agility. Changing your 'planning' and 'resources' for new products is taking too long time. This was also mentioned by te second keynote speaker of today, Jan Baan. He said that the change in business processes is much faster than the change in out IT systems.
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