Siemens AG is one of the leading providers of factory automation solutions and components as well as Manufacturing Execution Systems and Product Lifecycle Management Software. To support human manufacturing planners and line operators in their daily tasks and increase the autonomy of production machinery, the research group for "Semantics and Reasoning" of Siemens Corporate Technology initiated a Manufacturing Knowledge Graph leveraging metaphactory. The goal was to test the feasibility of Smart Manufacturing Planning and Smart Manufacturing Execution concepts utilizing semantic technology. For this, the team created a Manufacturing Knowledge Graph to capture heterogeneous data sources and expert knowledge and built an AI-based knowledge graph application to automate the allocation of suitable production equipment.
The results?
The feasibility studies conducted proved that:
- The number of possible plans and configurations that human planners need to evaluate can in some situations be reduced from approx. 1,400 to as few as 40.
- The realization of low-volume orders is feasible and can become affordable by enabling machines to act autonomously.