Cross-disciplinary Design Based on the Digital Factory as a Boundary Object

In the domain of developing production systems, the design of a good factory is typically distributed over many disciplines and organizations to cover all involved technologies and levels of detail (process, logistics, machinery etc.). Modelling and simulation used to support the design process within each of the disciplines typically represent different contexts and perspectives. To cross the discipline borders and share experiences, to encourage innovation and make holistic decisions, one challenge is to interrelate various digital models and to reach a mutual system understanding between stakeholders.This paper presents a study based on principles from Social Science, Production Engineering, Computer Science and Information Design to address cross-disciplinary collaboration. Principles concerning visual communication and theories in regard to tangible boundary objects are used to clarify how to describe production system interdependencies in a digital factory context. Work in process of implementing a digital factory framework based on the principles is described, with a use case demonstrating the development of a digital factory for a new type of automotive vehicle.