Method for Digital Information Continuity in the Context of Short-Cycled Factory Replanning

Abstract Factory operators face a challenging business environment, necessitating more frequent factory upgrades. State-of-the-art approaches for factory planning include extensive data preparation efforts, accounting for approximately 60% of the total planning effort. Within the last few years, model-based approaches such as building information modelling have significantly improved factory planning efficiency. However, the holistic digital factory models that stand at the end of the factory planning phase are not effectively transferred into the operational phase. They are, therefore, not linked to the digital twin and are not updated during the operation phase. Consequently, these digital factory models become outdated and cannot be used for subsequent factory replanning. Based on a structured literature review and two focus group discussions, this paper proposes a new method for transferring holistic digital factory models into the operations phase and to provide an updated digital factory model at the interface to the next replanning phase. The feasibility of this method is validated at the application scenario of a laboratory for additive multi-material manufacturing with data from energy monitoring and MES.