virtual factory Operating System
Duration: 10/2016 – 9/2019 Funding: Horizon 2020 2016 – Factories of the Future
vf-OS
The World is facing the fourth industrial revolution based on ICT, specifically architectures and services, as key innovation drivers for manufacturing companies. Traditional factories will increasingly be transformed into smart digital manufacturing environments. Currently, the full potential for ICT in manufacturing is far from being fully exploited. Factories are complex systems and there is a need to develop a platform on which future manufacturing applications can be built. Vf-OS aims to be this platform.
The goal of the vf-OS project is to develop an Open Operating System for Virtual Factories, composed by a Virtual Factory System Kernel (vf-SK), a Virtual Factory Application Programming Interface (vf-API) and a Virtual Factory Middleware (vf-MW). An Open Applications Development Kit (vf-OAK) will be provided to software developers for deploying Manufacturing Smart Applications for industrial users, using the Manufacturing Applications Store (vf-mApp) at the Virtual Factory Platform (vf-P). The Virtual Factory Platform (vf-P) will be an economical multi-sided market platform with the aim of creating value by enabling interactions between Software Developers, Manufacturing Users, ICT Providers and Service Providers. It will provide a range of services to the connected factory of the future to integrate better manufacturing and logistics processes.
Contribution
Almende’s main goal is to develop the vf-OS Platform Environment and the vf-Service Provision Framework, providing a holistic service platform which is the foundation for all services and end-user applications vf-OS will facilitate. The service platform is the central outwards facing component of the project and will allow parties to easily develop, describe, discover, provide, consume, administrate, personalise and combine/compose applications, as well as monitor their execution. Since the developed applications may rely on on-cloud services, Almende is also responsible for leading the development and deployment of cloud services.
Results
The project aligns with Almende’s vision on the manufacturing domain, specifically when it comes to creating virtual factories and supply chains that share information in a transparent fashion and introduce a higher degree of flexibility. The insights gained in this project can be successfully applied to other manufacturing challenges in the future.
More info?
Need specific information regarding the project? Please contact our senior consultant for more information.
