DIGITAL FACTORY

A digital factory is a shared digital model that gives you insights into how to design, build, and operate your facility, reconfigure it for product and process changes, and maximize overall efficiency and productivity.

A digital factory provides each stakeholder involved with the critical information they need to better design, build, and operate their facilities.

• Make record project timelines: Face changing markets without slowing down. Get your factory running quickly, reconfigure it even faster, and repeat. 
• Raise the bar for collaboration: Unlock new levels of efficiency, adaptability, and innovation with workflows connected across disciplines. 
• Eliminate costly errors: See building systems together with industrial equipment before installation begins to catch problems before they create waste and rework. 

Integrated digital factory technologies—like layout and design toolsets, simulation, data and process management, and digital twins provide organizations with the critical information they need to better design, build, and operate their facilities. Autodesk provides a comprehensive, robust, and integrated foundation of digital factory software including:

• Product Design & Manufacturing Collection A powerful set of applications with extended capabilities for Inventor and AutoCAD, built for engineers who design complex products, equipment, and systems, which includes: 
  • Factory Design Utilities Integrated tools to plan, design, and build an efficient factory layout 
  • AutoCAD Specialized 2D software for rapid conceptualization and design that includes optimization for transportation and power consumption on your factory floor
  • Inventor Open your 2D layout associatively in a 3D space for improved collaboration.  Continue your design process in 3D and quickly generate your bill of equipment 
  • Navisworks Aggregate the building, factory layout, and facility infrastructure into a single data model for clash detection and installation planning
  • Vault Product data management software to manage design files
  • Recap Reality capture and 3D scanning software and services
• Fusion Operations Production management and production floor tracking software
• FlexSim Simulation software to model and improve existing and proposed systems
• BIM Collaborate Pro Organize project data and collaborate with teams all in one place
• Revit Complete 3D modeling software for architects, engineers, and construction professionals to design buildings and infrastructure
• Autodesk Construction Cloud Deliver your projects on time and on budget in a secure and collaborative environment

Integrated factory modeling (IFM) connects, organizes, and optimizes all phases of factory projects. IFM enables the convergence of information about the facility, such as Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) and all the machines in production lines. Through centralized management, data silos are removed, giving every team real-time data access for simplified collaboration and faster, data-driven decision-making. To learn more about how your organization can benefit from integrated factory modeling, contact your account team.

A digital factory solution can automate manual tasks, optimize production schedules, monitor equipment performance in real-time, enable predictive maintenance, and provide actionable insights for continuous process improvement.

Yes, a digital factory solution can be customized to meet the specific needs of various manufacturing industries, including automotive, electronics, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, and more.

Digital factory software streamlines 2D and 3D workflows between multi-disciplinary project teams. For example, instead of designing a factory in AutoCAD and Inventor separately, you can simultaneously create a 2D and 3D model with appropriate level of detail with the Autodesk Factory Design Utilities. More advanced applications of digital factory software take advantage of interoperability between equipment models, factory layouts, reality capture data, and building models. All the data and processes are integrated in one digital factory model. At its most mature state, a model like this can be used as a digital twin for the production facility.

Similar to a digital factory, a smart factory relies on integration of equipment. However, a digital factory primarily refers to integration of all data and processes involved in a factory's lifecycle in one digital model, whereas a smart factory primarily refers to connections between equipment and computing systems, enhanced by automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Digital factories are useful for accelerating the factory design process, catching errors like collisions between equipment and building features, improving collaboration across multidisciplinary project contributors, and creating digital twins to support factory operation.

The automotive industry is leading the way for digitalization of the factory, but there are many examples in other industries as well. Factory owners, equipment manufacturers, full solution providers, and even AECO firms are adopting digital factory solutions to drive business outcomes.

The automotive industry is leading the way for digitalization of the factory, but there are many examples in other industries as well. Factory owners, equipment manufacturers, full solution providers, and even AECO firms are adopting digital factory software to drive business outcomes. Autodesk customers who have embraced the digital factory include:

• Porsche 
• Viessmann 
• Nestle