OptiProd.NRW Project has Started: Calculating Optimal Production Schedules
On January 24, 2020, our employees Dr. Christian Sonntag, Christian Koslowski, and Tobias Storck welcomed representatives of TU Dortmund University, Bayer AG, Projektträger Jülich, Evonik Technology & Infrastructure GmbH, and ARIC e. V. Hamburg at the INOSIM premises in the Dortmund technology park for the OptiProd.NRW kick-off meeting. Only a week before, the Optiprod.NRW project partners had already met the North Rhine-Westphalian Minister of Economic Affairs, Prof. Dr. Andreas Pinkwart, in the state capital Düsseldorf to receive the funding certificates.
Current Production Scheduling is Largely Manual
The partners presented their expertise and previous work and set the course for the project activities. The industry partners clearly pointed out the importance of the project: The current approach to production scheduling is largely manual and requires frequent adjustments, and the potential of using new software tools with innovative optimization methods is enormous.
In OptiProd.NRW, the partners are developing a new software system that employs state-of-the-art methods of mathematical optimization to automatically calculate optimal production schedules. Detailed “digital twins” of the production plant ensure that these schedules can be used directly in production without manual adjustments, which saves a lot of time and cost.
Teaming Up for Optimal Scheduling
INOSIM contributes simulation models and a software framework for the systematic integration of optimization tools for production scheduling with these models. In addition, INOSIM will develop new features for its simulation software suites that will enable a massively parallel execution of simulations. That feature will speed up not only optimization and production scheduling methods, but also statistical analysis using INOSIM models. Partner Bayer AG contributes a realistic industrial case study, and partner TU Dortmund University is responsible for the development of the optimization methodology and software. Evonik Technology & Infrastructure GmbH will provide industrial feedback from an end user perspective, and ARIC e. V. Hamburg will support the consortium with innovation management and knowledge transfer.
For more information, visit www.optiprod.nrw.
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