Future of Airplane Factory

Book excerpt: The Future of Airplane Factory: Digitally Optimized Intelligent Airplane Factory defines the architecture, key building blocks, and roadmap for actualizing a future airplane factory (FAF) that is digitally optimized for intelligent airplane assembly. They fit and integrate with other FAF building blocks that aggregate to a Digitally Optimized Intelligent Airplane Factory (DOIAF). The word "intelligent" refers to the ability of a system to make right decisions and take right action in the highly dynamic and fluid environment of the modern airplane manufacturing space. The event-driven dynamics inherent in the complexity of this environment drive the need for expert knowledge which resides in intelligence systems incorporating the experience of experts. Expert knowledge need not be smart, brilliant, or possess genius as long as the outcomes are derived from right decisions resulting in right actions-applied rapidly to sustain an optimized factory enterprise. Complete factory enterprise visibility requires a higher order of decision capability that current operating systems do not have. A highly visible factory collects and displays data and information as it happens-at a rate beyond the ability of humans and current systems to analyze, process, decide, and act upon. Expert systems are constructed to present humans with right decisions in the form of optimal choices for right actions by incorporating the knowledge of experts into the logic for the decision. Structured Knowledge-Based Expert Systems (SKBES) are incorporated in this book and defined as a critical component for full enterprise actionable visibility. The power of the Digitally Optimized Intelligent Airplane Factory not only is found in its ability to unify the factory, reduce touch labor, improve quality, and streamline throughput but it also enables a significant reduction in above-the-shop-floor support and management. Such an ecosystem frees the human to focus on the complexity of interpersonal responsibilities. If the use of a DOIAF can be viewed as a holistic mechanism, then the human can be the agent engaging with that mechanism; improving negotiations for pricing, contracts, or other person-to-person events that require instinct and relationship.