A comprehensive and holistic approach of multi-scale modelling and simulation of manufacturing systems

The modelling of manufacturing processes is approached in the professional communities as one of the essential, long-term demand, which requires the collaboration between large spectrums of research areas. This paper presents our innovative approach for a comprehensive and holistic factory simulation model. Under the "multi-scale" not only the spatial and temporal scales within separate manufacturing processes is understood, but also the different scales of all running processes in the whole manufacturing enterprise, called factory, as well as the different scales in the model itself. Therefore, for the purposes of the virtual and dynamic representation of the factory as a whole, at different scales or levels of abstraction, several heterogenous modelling approaches have to be coupled with each other. In order to illustrate the usability of this methodology we gave at the end of the paper a complex scenario in the field of the automotive coating industry.