Creating a Digital Factory Layout with Autodesk Factory Design Utilities

When creating a new factory layout from scratch, it can be quite large undertaking, not to mention the many considerations to acknowledge along the way. Hopefully this guide will help in making the Factory design journey a little easier.

Purpose

What are we hoping to get out of the factory layout at the end of the process? This could be simply planning changes on the factory floor with a layout, or simulation of the entire process line to identify the areas to improve. It might be that we just want the availability of a layout for anyone who may need or, or even allowing show floor teams access to a digital twin on the facility to report problems and trigger corrective actions.

The point is, with an idea of where you need to be, will allow you to plan the route to achieving it. If we want to simulate process lines for example, FlexSim may be a good option but will benefit from a detailed model. if we simply want a layout to be available, a 2D AutoCAD drawing may suffice.

Software

• AutoCAD is a great starting point for any layout as we can generate floorplans, building outlines and use simple blocks as place holders to start.
• Revit is a fantastic tool for creating buildings and layouts. If available, it can be a massive aid in the creation of a facility.
• Inventor if often seen as a product modelling tool but has a lot of advantage in populating our assets.
• Navisworks is a fantastic tool for project review and clash detection.
• Vault is purely data management in this aspect, but have all of the possible data in one place is always a benefit.
• Construction Cloud (ACC) can help both with data management, and help tie in workflows further down the line, in implementing and maintaining our factory.
• Factory Design Utilities brings AutoCAD 2D, Inventor and Navisworks 3D into an easy multi directional workflow.
• FlexSim is a powerful tool for visually simulating a process line. It can help us identify bottlenecks in our process and let us review the impact of a floor change before implementation happens.

Data

The more data we have available to us at an early stage, the better. This could be models of our factory equipment, or the facility itself. Once again, it is important to note end goals as to whether spending a lot of time on detail is really necessary. If detail is available, it’s always welcome but if time is critical, bounding box representation can help at an early stage.

Don’t forget that Factory Design Utilities has lots of system assets built-in to aid you on your journey. Some of the products in the library might not be exactly what is on your shop floor, but they will certainly look better than a block. They can be used to start and replaces with more detail later on, as necessary.

Digital Twin

If the end goal is a full digital twin, remember it’s all about information! There are many ways to publish content for BIM practices, such as assigning relevant information to our assets when publishing them. Alternatively, Revit Families can be created/published with tools like Informed Design.

Once you have a layout with the relevant geometry to suit your facility, a hosting platform such as Autodesk Tandem can be used to integrate live performance monitoring and IOT integrations.