Digital Factory Technologies for Robotic Automation and Enhanced Manufacturing Cell Design

Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution is characterised by the increased use of digital tools, allowing for the virtual representation 
of a real production environment at different levels, from the entire production plant to a single machine or a specific process 
or operation. In this framework, Digital Factory technologies, based on the employment of digital modelling and simulation 
tools, can be used for short-term analysis and validation of production control strategies or for medium term pro- duction 
planning or production system design/redesign. In this research work, a Digital Factory methodology is proposed to support 
the enhancement of an existing manufacturing cell for the fabrication of aircraft engine turbine vanes via robotic automation 
of its deburring station. To configure and verify the correct layout of the upgraded manufacturing cell with the aim to increase 
its performance in terms of resource utilization and throughput time, 3D Motion Simulation and Discrete Event Simulation 
are jointly employed for the modeling and simulation of different cell settings for proper layout configuration, safe motion 
planning and resource utiliza- tion improvement. Validation of the simulation model is carried out by collecting actual data from 
the physical reconfigured manufacturing cell and comparing these data to the model forecast with the aim to adapt the digital 
model accordingly to closely represent the physical manufacturing system