Digital Factory for human production system: the Difac project

DiFac (Digital Factory for Human-Oriented Production System) is an IST research project (FP6-2005-IST-5-035079) funded by the European Commission within the 6th Framework Programme under "Collaborative Working Environments" priority. The aim of the project is to develop an innovative, collaborative manufacturing environment (CME) for the next generation of digital factories to support the competitiveness of Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The paper presents DiFac framework and the Integrated Scenario showing a typical day in a factory where managers face different duties and solve problems using new technologies and in particular the DiFac solutions. The Framework is based on human factor aspects represented by the three pillars: Presence, Ergonomics and Collaboration. Moreover the specific functionalities for the companies are collected in specific process called digital activities. In the created industrial scenario, we imagine the General Manager, the Technical and Project Managers of a Laser Machine company, called SECONDA, guide the reader into a possible solution where Virtual and Augmented Reality support the SMEs in their daily industrial reality. A special attention is given to the GIOVE toolkit as one of the technical solution for building up the Virtual Factory. A digital factory is a virtualised environment facilitate the sharing of factory resources, manufacturing information and knowledge, supporting the collaborative product review, the factory planning, the management and the training among different participants. DiFac provides a framework to support group work in an immersive and interactive way for such manufacturing activities. DiFac is not a software platform, as it is composed of a set of software, methodologies and guidelines integrated in a suite which the entry point is represented by a web portal.