Integrated Factory Modelling – Enabling Dynamic Changes for the Factory of the Future at the Example of E.GO Mobile AG

Fast-moving changes in products, materials and process technologies require factory planning processes and procedures to be flexible and dynamic. Today, most factory planning projects are missing their budget (72%) and time targets (60%). To reduce these deviations, digitalization is key to success, but in current approaches, coordination between different planning disciplines is missing as well as different technology maturity levels prohibit automated interfaces. The Integrated Factory Modelling (IFM2) is an interdisciplinary planning approach for Green- and Brownfield factories coordinating all planning disciplines from infrastructure to process planning across the factory lifecycle. Therefore, the Integrated Factory Model (IFM) as a single dataset is established for all planning participants, accessible everywhere and on every device. Collaboration is enhanced by the working mode with an agile factory scrum process. Based on the IFM user-specific smart expert tools have been developed supporting planners and managers.

As a result, planning processes could be improved significantly, reducing costs by 20–30%, saving one-year planning time for a Greenfield and reduce planning failures significantly. IFM was initially applied and introduced to the e.GO Mobile AG, which is used as an example showing real-life use cases, challenges as well as next development steps.