Today’s major challenges for manufacturing companies are clear: global cooperation with multiple supply chain partners, the boosting of productivity and finally the tracking and management of information so as to meet new requirements in terms of traceability, security and sustainability. FoFdation will establish a universal manufacturing information system based on a “data integration” standard such as STEP and its EXPRESS language, which allows individual entities and their associated devices to share data in a common format. This foundation will then allow the Smart Factory architecture to be implemented based on a high bandwidth ‘manufacturing information pipeline’ for data interoperability. Incorporation of the project into the Smart Factory sub-domain, in view of real-time networking and adaptive capability, also includes: • Optimisation of numerically-controlled machining systems, including programmable logic controllers through an embedded Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. • Support for an advanced Manufacturing Execution System (MES), providing not only integrated process automation but also an extension of its scope to achieve energy efficiency and sustainability objectives and promote e-manufacturing and waste reduction. • Reduction of time-to-market costs and costs related to resource diagnosis-maintenance through a common control and monitoring platform. • The use of homogenous information sources which generate data from the entire process, achieving information binding from the extended MES to innovation in product lifecycle management and incorporating the business dimension of enterprise resource planning.

Web resources:	http://www.fofdation-project.eu https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/95899/factsheet/en
Start date:	01-06-2010
End date:	31-05-2014
Total budget - Public funding:	10 348 387,00 Euro - 6 659 910,00 Euro
Call topic:	Smart Factories: ICT for agile and environmentally friendly manufacturing (FoF.ICT.2010.10.1)