Information Management for Factory Planning and Design

Abstract: This thesis is dedicated to the manufacturing industry for the improvement of information management within the factory planningand design domain, and for more efficient factory planning and design. Currently the manufacturing industry lacks sufficient methods for capturing, structuring, and representing information and knowledge for easy access, exchange, integration and reuse within the domain. Therefore the focus of this thesis is on information and knowledge management within factory planning and design, which involves two subjects; information management and factory planning and design. In this thesis information and knowledge are captured by different models for different purposes, with the viewpoint of the factory planner and designer. A concept model is developed for a unified understanding of terms. An activity model is developed to define the domain scope, information flow and is used as the core of the factory planning and realization pilot, which is also developed. Information models from different information standards have been evaluated for a future common information platform within factory design. Principles about how to apply standards and concept models to the factory design are presented and discussed.