Digital factory constructor: integrated tools to design and simulate a factory layout

This article presents the research results of the European project DiFac - Digital Factory for Human Oriented Production System, through new and innovative concepts in the area of continuously, integrated and collaborative factory planning - the Factory Constructor. The conceived and implemented architecture is overviewed, as well. Web-based collaboration tools, a VR tool for participative and interdisciplinary factory layout planning, a distributed VR environment for collaborative layout visualization and improvement as well as a web-based simulation tool for the optimization of the layout are integrated for the purposes of holistic and continuously factory and process planning.