The TU Wien Pilotfactory Industry 4.0 is a learning, innovation and demonstration factory for smart production and cyber-physical production systems. It focuses on new concepts and solutions for a multi-variant serial production in the field of discrete manufacturing industry.
A wide range of training courses in the academic field and for lifelong learning on the job, the infrastructure is also available for research projects. Large production machines in subtractive and additive metal processing are available here. In addition, there are industrial robots, collaborative robots, automated guided vehicles, and the IT hardware and software required for the automation and digitization of production processes.
Demonstrators manufacturing:
• Cyber-physical Production Systems (CPPS) by using Cyber-physical Systems (CPS)
• Fast and flexible configuration and reconfiguration of automation components (Plug & Produce)
• Safety and security in a flexible and reconfigurable manufacturing system
• Optical pallet/workpiece detection for robot manipulation
• Hybrid manufacturing through combination of additive and subtractive manufacturing technologies
• Virtualisation of manufacturing and handling processes
• Process modeling and execution for fast and easy service integration
• Filling the gap between MES and shop-floor connectivity through a process-based integration layer
• Integration of automated-guided vehicles (AGVs) in MES / shop-floor tasks and graph-based route programming
• Additive Manufacturing in SLM and SLS processes
Demonstrators Logistics and assembly:
• RFID sensors and RFID trackers, in intelligent containers, to monitor material flow and use in KANBAN
• Workflow monitoring systems, mounted on vehicles for optimizing material flows through collected information
• Mobile workstation, based on AGVs, which moves with the worker through the assembly line and transports tools and products
Education
Within academic teaching, the pilot factory offers both overview courses on industry 4.0 for first-year students and specialization courses for advanced students. The main topics here are:
• Automation and digitalization of production processes
• Human-machine collaboration
• Security and safety in production
• Energy efficiency and sustainability
For industrial companies, especially for SMEs, these topics are compiled individually. Workshops are also offered here in which initial experience can be gained in the areas of 3D printing, digital assistance systems and robot programming in the infrastructure of the pilot factory.
Reseach
The Pilot Factory Industry 4.0 is a central research facility of the TU Wien, where cross-faculty research is conducted. The most important topics are:
• Multidisciplinary modelling of product and production system
• Operational parallel virtual simulation and optimization of real-time processes with direct synchronization of fine-grained real-time information
• Simulation and virtualization of manufacturing cells
• Adaptive and modifiable manufacturing processes
• Flexible configuration (Plug & Produce)
• Modelling & execution
• Knowledge- and function-based modeling in OPC UA
• Safety and security of reconfigurable equipment
• Cognitive Assistance Systems in Assembly and Logistics
• Digital and visual assistance
• Cooperative and Collaborative Robotics
• Human-Centered appropriate and work load-adaptive assembly
• Cell-oriented Assembly systems planed and controlled by DIGITAL TWIN
Industry cooperation
Projects referring to TU Wien Pilot Factory:
• Learning Factory for Improving Digital Competitiveness and Industry 4.0 Readiness of SMEs in Balkans, EIT Manufacturing
• Learning Factories for Digital Transformation of SMEs, FactoRIS I + II, EIT-M
• Increasing the competitiveness of the domestic SMEs in order to improve their cooperation with foreign investors’ companies, EuropeAid/138-495/ID/ACT/MK
• SMART - Sustainable Smart Mobile Devices (Smart phones and Tablets) Lifecycles through Advanced Re-design, Reliability, and Re-use and Remanufacturing Technologies, EU Horizon2020 Project, 680604
• EuProGigant – EuProGigant and data infrastructure for Europe (Gaia-X) European Production Giganet for calamity avoiding self-orchestration of value chain and learning ecosystems works on central questions related to “smart and sovereign use of data in manufacturing” and demonstrates how a highly networked production ecosystem can orchestrate itself, and be equipped with stabilising characteristics. BIG DATA in the production, FFG No. 37060253
TU Wien Pilot Factory will be the coordinator of one of the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH), which will start in autumn 2022. There will be a large free offer of trainings and small projects for SMEs to drive the digital transformation of SMEs in Europe.
Questionnaire
