Northern sensor companies develop technologies for faultless factory

The Northern Netherlands will become the home of the first factory that cannot make any errors.

The place in question is the factory of Stork Fokker in Hoogeveen, where high-end aircraft building components are made. Set up by the Investment and Development Agency for the Northern Netherlands (NOM), this project, which has been given the name the 'Smart Factory for the manufacturing industry', is being implemented by a consortium of SME companies, all of which are concerned with sensor technology applications. The companies are Langhout & Cazemier of Drachten, PTC Remote Management & Service of Heerenveen, Braincenter of Drachten and S&T of Dwingeloo. Stork Fokker is the consortium's treasurer. The parties are together investing a sum approaching 5 million euros.

The Northern Netherlands Provinces (SNN) plans to support the project with a subsidy of almost 2 million euros within the scope of Koers Noord and the European Regional Development Fund (OP-ERDF). The project is in keeping with the policy of the northern public authorities to support sensor technology applications, with Sensor Universe playing a coordinating role as the umbrella organisation.
The consortium will be developing technology to take a completely different approach to controlling complex production processes. Industrial processes are still subject to a lot of wastage and efficiency losses because all sorts of generally unforeseeable factors that disrupt production remain present. Errors are often not established until afterwards, when it is too late to adjust the production process, as a result of which products are rejected and time is wasted. In a complex industrial process, a wastage level of 10% is not unusual. Needless to say, that leads to unnecessary costs and the wastage of energy and materials.

The Smart Factory consortium is setting out to try a different approach. The companies will be placing sensors (measurement instruments) throughout the process in order to constantly monitor everything that happens. Modern mathematical techniques will then be used to convert the knowledge this yields into computer models. These models will gradually become more detailed, so that it becomes possible to predict exactly what is about to happen. This will make it possible to make adjustments before errors occur. The end result is a stable and faultless production process. This principle of 'self-learning' production control is being used and tested for the first time in Stork Fokker's factory in Hoogeveen. After that the consortium will be placing the technology on the market, in response to considerable worldwide demand.

Smart Factory platform
The Stork Fokker project forms part of a much broader initiative in which 30 companies are working together under the leadership of the NOM to turn the Northern Netherlands into a major player in the fast-growing modern production control area.  These companies will shortly be carrying out several pilots, also in other branches of industry such as the chemistry and foods industry.