IT Manufacturing Technology Takes a Big Step Towards a Digital Factory

Strategic Insights -

The IT revolution has failed to help companies overcome the costly task of redesigning factories from the ground up when developing a new product model. However, IT manufacturing technology is now taking a significant step towards an integrated "digital factory" model, which could revolutionize production planning procedures, resulting in substantial time and cost benefits for industry. The virtual manufacturing battle is heating up between market leader Tecnomatix Technologies and its US-based competitor, Deneb Robotics, owned by Dassault Systèmes.

Key Takeaways:

  • The $200m Computer-Aided Production Engineering (Cape) market is growing at about 30% a year, with robotics simulators accounting for 45% of the market and shop floor simulators for 23%.
  • Individual Cape technologies have provided enormous efficiency gains, with Volvo speeding up the time it took to design, manufacture, and install equipment on a single welding line by 20% using Tecnomatix's Robcad.
  • The digital factory is essentially a computer database containing all of a factory's processes, manufacturing resources, and designs, which will become a crucial tool as the life cycles of products shrink in many industries.
  • The virtual factory must be fully interactive with standard Computer-Aided Design (Cad) tools for it to work effectively, and the link to Cad is crucial for robotics programming and simulation.
  • Deneb's challenge will be to maintain links with all Cad tools after being acquired by Dassault Systèmes, while Tecnomatix faces the challenge of integrating different tools after expanding through acquisitions.

Statistics:

  • The Cape market is valued at $200 million and is growing at 30% per year.
  • Robotics simulators account for 45% of the Cape market, while shop floor simulators account for 23%.
  • Discrete event simulation tools account for 32% of the Cap market.
  • Tecnomatix's Robcad helped Volvo speed up the time it took to design, manufacture, and install equipment on a single welding line by 20%.
  • The digital factory is expected to become a crucial tool as the life cycles of products shrink in many industries.

Sources:

  • Daratech, the US-based Cadcam market research company.
  • Tecnomatix Technologies.
  • Deneb Robotics.
  • Dassault Systèmes.
  • Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC).
  • Financial Times Limited 1999.