The fourth Industrial Revolution is happening now, and it is being brought about by the use of Digital Technology in the Manufacturing System in the same way that Steam, Electricity, and Computers powered prior revolutions across industry.
Our vision in developing smart factories at Rolls-Royce is to combine digital technologies such as devices that are part of the Internet of Things, Big Data and Connectivity with physical assets to enable a step change in manufacturing efficiency, supply chain performance, and product optimisation.
In our complex manufacturing environment, processes need to be wholly understood before their implementation. Product design, manufacturing, engineering and production management decisions often involve the consideration of numerous variables. This is why we have deployed company-wide adoption of standards in order to best integrate and leverage the benefits of Digital Manufacturing.
For the manufacture of our large Aero Engines, digitalisation has two key focus areas:
The Digital Commodity Twin – The digital definition of the manufacturing product lifecycle from design concept through to physical realisation of an engine with all workflows and technical content digitally connected (or threaded), in a package that can be shared through a globally connected network.
and,
The Digital Production Twin – The digital definition of the manufacturing production system from receipt of an engine order to its eventual delivery to a customer. This is used throughout the production lifecycle to simulate, predict, and boost our business performance.