Virtual commissioning of manufacturing systems a review and new approaches for simplification

Virtual commissioning (VC) of manufacturing systems has been researched for more than 10 years. Its intention is to test manufacturing systems and associated control programs through simulation conducted before the real systems are realised. The expected benefits in reducing debugging and correction efforts expended during real commissioning, however, can only be achieved if sufficiently detailed manufacturing system models are available for simulation. To date, the design of such models has certainly required a high level of expertise and considerable effort, which makes virtual commissioning unattractive, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). After reviewing the current status of VC, this paper describes some new concepts for the systematic and simplified design of manufacturing system models for VC based on model libraries and standardized recipes for the design of component models from CAD data. This work is carried out as part of the research cooperation between the University of Glamorgan and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hannover.