"SWAP-IT" will gradually be available as open source

Produce smartly "SWAP-IT" will gradually be available as open source

2024-08-13 Source: Fraunhofer-IWU | Translated by AI 2 min Reading Time

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The production architecture "SWAP-IT", developed by an interdisciplinary consortium of Fraunhofer Institutes, is ready for use. Soon it will become open source.

Modular software and modular hardware. The "SWAP-IT" architecture consists of generic basic and application-specific functional modules and—connected to the shop floor—becomes the control technological backbone of tomorrow's production.(Image: Fraunhofer-IML) — Modular software and modular hardware. The "SWAP-IT" architecture consists of generic basic and application-specific functional modules and—connected to the shop floor—becomes the control technological backbone of tomorrow's production.
(Image: Fraunhofer-IML)

Manufacturing companies today have to deal with multifaceted and diverse challenges. These include quantity ranges from batch size 1 to larger series and, last but not least, dealing with delays and failures in the supply chains. But with the readiness to use "SWAP-IT", the vision of utilization-optimized, flexibly arranged manufacturing modules, which are equipped by driverless transport systems (FTS) and can manufacture a variety of products, becomes reality, according to the researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology (IWU) involved in the project.

Existing machines can also be involved

Modern manufacturing layouts, such as matrix arrangements, together with this software architecture, then form an adaptable production infrastructure that enables efficient manufacturing even of smaller quantities. This works with a production planning and control system that flexibly assigns these modules and due to the segmentation and "intelligent" distribution of manufacturing scopes also makes large components producible in small plants. Existing machines can also be integrated into this new production architecture, as the IWU emphasizes. The Fraunhofer alliances "Production", "Light & Surfaces" and "ICT Technology" have pooled their interdisciplinary skills to develop a common architecture, which now has application possibilities in the industries of automotive production, mechanical engineering, aircraft construction and electrical engineering.

There will be a workshop on this at the end of September

An important step towards a ready-to-implement cyber-physical production system, it continues, is the order-centered production environment in which production orders are orchestrated using a specially developed description language, the Production Flow Description Language ("PFDL"), and delivered to the processing stations. This language formalizes production orders and fully automatically controls the orders. The production resources can be dynamically allocated at runtime with the architecture, which allows a quick response to failures or short-term order peaks. Both the architecture and "PFDL" of "SWAP-IT" will be open source in the future for expansion into a modular production architecture. The opening will occur gradually from the end of this year. The comprehensive spectrum of software and hardware applications of the "SWAP-IT" architecture is at the center of an industrial workshop taking place on September 26, 2024 in Dresden at the IWU.

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Date: 08.12.2025

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