Position Paper: Towards an Autonomous Factory

The NXTGEN Hightech Smart Industry project 'Autonomous factory - Common' recently published a position paper outlining the reasoning and benefits behind autonomous factories.

The growing demand for improved economic, ecological, and social sustainability, is driving factories to innovate their processes. With higher levels of autonomy, factories can achieve flexible manufacturing, which allows for high mix low volume production, reduces the ecological footprint of the factory, and improve the quality of human labor.

While there is no one right solution on how an autonomous factory should be created, the industry can move towards it by implementing various tools which make different steps of the processes autonomous.

This position paper outlines the reasoning and benefits behind autonomous factories, alongside with specifications and needed components. The aim is to set the scene for making a factory autonomous by not only defining and scoping relevant components but also providing insight into the first steps of the NXTGEN Smart Industry - Common project.

Click here to download the position paper.