In this article the technological possibilities offered by the interoperability standard High Level Architecture (HLA) are introduced and discussed. The main focus is hereby on manufacturing applications, but the same approach is applicable to a wide range of other scenarios, e.g. in the area of supply chains, logistics, product simulation etc. Especially for challenging objectives like the digital factory which many enterprises are currently facing, simulation applications are gaining growing importance. While simulations nowadays are often still applied for isolated problems, the consideration of the global context has a growing importance. A solution for solving this problem is offered by the distributed simulation paradigm: simulations are no longer single purpose applications. Rather, individual simulation models can be combined with each other for serving different purposes. Coupled simulations of different parts of a factory can be used to perform global optimizations. The same paradigm can be used for entire supply chains. For applying the distributed simulation paradigm, technological as well as organizational aspects have to be considered. On the technological side, it is necessary to integrate a certain interoperability standard into the tools which need to be coupled with each other. On the organizational level, an enterprise wide process has to be established, which defines how distributed modeling and simulation shall be applied. This article discusses solutions for both issues and illustrates them using a practical application scenario.
The implementation of a so-called "Digital Factory" is a tremendous challenge for automotive engineering. The technical task is to effect a seamless information backbone spanning three key departments: Design, Production Process Planning, and Manufacturing. Also suppliers such as machine and tool vendors have to be integrated into the information flow. Furthermore, there is the challenge of assimilating the human factor into the digital factory. New production planning tools will significantly change not only the contemporary production process planner's work but also the collaboration with suppliers. This raises one major issue: how to integrate different user groups into the design of complex engineering applications for production planning. The authors focus on a case study about the development of a computer-aided planning (CAP) tool, which has been running since 1999 at DaimlerChrysler AG. The complexity of engineering processes and related information technology (IT) applications is examined and success factors for user involvement into IT development are identified. Finally, the article concludes with an adapted scenario-based approach for the interdisciplinary and participative development of complex engineering applications.
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