In 2020, Purdue launched the 8,000 square foot Intelligent Manufacturing Testbed (IMT) to demonstrate the digital transformation of the manufacturing enterprise, specifically the technologies, methods, and information behind the concept of the “digital twin”. The Testbed enables industry participants – especially Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) – to investigate technologies and methods to integrate products, processes and systems across an extended value chain and product life cycle. The Testbed develops and demonstrates various configurations of technology and processes to illustrate art of the possible, allowing industry partners to readily deploy in their respective environments. The IMT staff also offer prototyping services to the entrepreneurial community and conduct workshops and technology showcase events with other partners and stakeholders to engage companies across Indiana and beyond.
The Testbed features a range of physical processes to generate data that will be collated into useful information streams for building relevant decision models, which can be deployed to various operator, supervisor and management audiences in timely and accessible formats. The Intelligent Manufacturing Testbed deploys an expansive suite of commercial and open-source computer aided design (CAD), product lifecycle management (PLM), manufacturing execution system (MES) and data visualization and translation tools. A complete Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) architecture integrates CAD, PDM, MES, and analytics tools and applications to validate and demonstrate ways to manage product and process information across business systems and job roles throughout an extended manufacturing enterprise. Digital infrastructures are configured to develop applications and showcase intelligent solutions (a mixture of COTS, open-source, and custom) for a range of manufacturer needs and capabilities. The capabilities for distributed IoT sensor networks, operations technologies (OT) and information technologies (IT) to track materials, parts, utilities, and people have been deployed using various commercial utilities. Predictive modeling tools have been developed to monitor manufacturing variations and equip management to make more timely, better-informed decisions.
Core Technical and Process Areas:
- Machine to machine communication across enterprise platforms (commercial, custom, open-source)
- Enterprise and expanded supply chain information architecture, data storage and analytics
- Computer simulation, 3D models, interoperable systems and applications (internal, edge, cloud)
- Design, validation and demonstration of unique combinations of smart technologies and systems
- Advanced sensing, instrumentation, monitoring, and control tools and methods (process optimization, quality compliance, predictive maintenance, real time cost tracking, logistics)
- Digital twin and its applications (materials, product, process, supply chain, cost & risk management)
- Cyber security of systems and devices (future)
Other Features:
- High-fidelity monitoring and simulation of manufacturing and extended supply chain processes
- Algorithm development for advanced control and performance optimization (big data, IoT)
- Validate secure, reliable combinations of sensors and IT architectures to present and exchange useful information across the factory and extended supply chain
- Demonstrate “digital thread” concepts and use of commercial, custom and open-source tools
- Real-time tracking and control of energy, productivity and costs across factory and supply chain
- Accelerate the design to manufacture cycle through intelligent use of information technologies