Enabling digitally integrated product design and production through digital continuity and feedback to design

Due to global and political influence, resilient and versatile production systems are unavoidable. Based on existing Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems there is a growing need for a consistent communication between machines and product design to enable integrated product and production process design. Core aspects are integrating the product design information directly into the production equipment and their feedback into the product design as well as into other phases of the product creation and usage. Therefore, a generalized production description language as well as an architecture for the digital integrated product design and production need to be developed. This paper presents the first results of a use case in the automotive industry. The approach of developing the functional architecture is shown. Several feedback to X approaches were researched in literature and analyzed regarding functional requirements for integration in the developed architecture. The results are the main basis for further implementation within the automotive production. Moreover, the main challenges and next steps are discussed.