Digital transformation of Production Systems
Introduction
There is a common consensus that digital technologies such as IIoT, cloud computing and data analytics will contribute to the transformation of traditional production facilities into highly optimized smart factories with production systems that can efficiently and effectively handle the demands of the customer. The ability to achieve high performance production systems is greatly affected by the company’s ability to make use of the possibilities offered of the novel digital technologies. However, current research shows that the overall company readiness level for deploying and integrating new emerging digital technologies and techniques, for example digital twin or Cyberphysical systems, in the existing production environments is poor with inconsistent activities and efforts in digital transformation of production systems.
Need
Much of the on-going research connected to digital transformation has focused on specific technologies, i.e. it has been mainly technology driven without considering the implications of these new types of technologies on production system’s resources, information systems, organization, and culture. At the same time, most of the research carried out in production development originated before production systems integrated the use of digital technologies. Therefore, traditional methods, processes, techniques, and capabilities for production system development are no longer sufficient in the ongoing digital transformation. Rather today’s digital transformation requires new ways of working and new forms of capabilities in order to fully capitalize the benefits offered by technologies such as access to real-time information exchange for improved decision-making, visualise the health and performance of production systems. There is a high urgency that manufacturing companies build strategic digital capabilities to plan for and utilize digital technologies in the best possible way.
Topic
The overall theme for this track is to study the transformation of traditional production systems towards smart production systems to investigate how, when and to what extent enabling digital technologies should be implemented in industrial production. We will target this challenge by integrating the three core perspectives of technology, organisation and processes to ensure a holistic perspective and to enable that digital technologies can be introduced faster for enhanced industrial performance. Topics to explore include how to integrate and utilize novel digital technologies in a structured way in the entire value chain, considering the needs and constraints from material suppliers, technology suppliers, manufacturers, and customers. Key envisioned application areas are industrialization of new production technologies, production development, maintenance and internal logistics. Further, the development of new business models to support the value chain collaboration in realising the digital transformation of production systems is of interest.