Factory and Logistics Planning with Virtual Reality

Layout-planning and material-flow simulation are two significant tasks in the process of todays factory-planning: Layout-planning and its visualization is done with 2D CAD-Drawings or 3-D-CAD-models. Material-flow will be designed and estimated with the aid of simulation-tools (like TAYLOR or Simple++). Those tasks affect each other since the results of the capacity planning with material-flow simulation will directly influence layout-planning of the factory and vice versa. The integration of those processes would speed up the whole planning process and increase the reliability of the planning results. Based on its Virtual Reality simulation system, IPA has now developed an integrated simulation system, combining Virtual Reality simulation with material-flow simulation. The system consists of the three dimensional visualization component and the real-time object simulation component. The object simulation component is directly driven from the outputfiles of a material-flow simulation s ystem. In this paper the structure and the development of the necessary software-components will be discussed and first projects carried out with this simulation-tool will be shown.