SDM4FZI research project – software-defined manufacturing for the automotive and supplier industry

The challenge in the vehicle and supplier industry today is to produce economically despite highly volatile markets and under dynamic conditions.

The decisive competitive factor for this is the adaptability of production systems. In order to achieve maximum adaptability, a strict separation between the hardware of the production systems and the controlling software must be created. The project SDM4FZI therefore deals with the new method: Software-defined Manufacturing (SDM). Analogous to solutions from information and communication technology, non-predefined functions are to be realized by automatically generated software.

The basic prerequisite is the abstraction of the existing hardware by digital twins with the help of which the software can be automatically derived and distributed. For this purpose, the existing production OT (Operational Technology) has to be rethought in order to make the control and communication infrastructure SDM-capable. SDM creates the basis for innovative applications and business models that use digital twins as their core to optimize adaptive production systems.

In SDM4FZI, SimPlan is primarily concerned with further developing value stream and logistics models into value stream and logistics twins by integrating them into the SDM4FZI platform. Furthermore, the usability of value stream and logistics twins to support transformability is demonstrated together with application partners such as Audi and Bosch.

The project consortium includes the following partners: