The H2020 FACTLOG Project Consortium, where TAGES is one of the partners, came together on 9-11 May 2022 in Biella, Italy for the plenary meeting of the Project and also visited Fratelli Piacenza S.p.A. (Piacenza Cashmere) premises which is one of the pilot partners of the Project.
FACTLOG (Energy-aware Factory Analytics for Process Industries), funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme and started on 1 November 2019, continues its activities by 20 partners from 11 different countries such as Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Slovenia, Serbia, Turkey, Ireland, United Kingdom, Portugal, Romania, Germany.
FACTLOG project is aiming at the implementation of technological solutions for Cognitive Digital Twins in the process industry, increasing the overall efficiency of the industrial equipment, while reducing maintenance costs and saving energy. Digital twins are a virtual simulation of real-world objects. One of the main expectations of the use of digital twins is to provide the capability to observe and monitor the behavior of their respective physical twins.
On 9-11 May 2022, the FACTLOG Plenary Meeting was held in Biella, Italy and the consortium partners visited Fratelli Piacenza S.p.A. (Piacenza Cashmere) premises, which is one of the pilot partners in the Textile Industry. As TAGES representatives Erdem Gülgener, Vice-chairman of the board, and Aslıhan Kağnıcı, Projects Consultant attended the meeting and the visit.
In FACTLOG, TAGES, as the Innovation Partner and Turkish Process Industry Association Representative, works on the assessment and monitoring of manufacturing KPIs and the exploitation of the FACTLOG analytics and optimization software tools in circular manufacturing for a sustainable environment.
Erdem Gülgener presenting on how to transform FACTLOG KPIs into sustainability KPIs in Biella Meeting
On the 9th of May, Alessandro Canepa, the Innovation Manager of Piacenza, toured the factory and explained the production processes of Piacenza cashmere. Piacenza is a manufacturer of fine woolen fabrics, and a supplier of fabrics to world-leading fashion brand manufacturers (Louis Vuitton Kering Group, Gucci, Prada, Dior, and Hermès, among others) that compete in the design proposal, customization, and quality of products, having left the cost competition arena.
FACTLOG Consortium visiting Fratelli Piacenza Premises in Biella
The organization of manufacturing reflects the peculiarities of typical EU textile SMEs. In its machine fleet, especially in those parts of the process which have a direct impact on quality, like finishing or weaving, machines coexist with ICT infrastructure tracing back 10 years or more. However, in order to address the continuous pressure toward deep customization of fabrics and the fast reduction of lot dimension, Piacenza has dedicated significant efforts to the renewal of its ICT infrastructures in order to collect and exploit the produced data and to optimize its complex and inhomogeneous production.
During the production process, a continuous flow of information comes from the machines, and, in case of unexpected events, necessary action suggestions are provided based on previous cases. Data collected by the Production Unit Controller are also shared with the MES, ERP, and production scheduler and with the factory coordinator, at the company level.
In most parts of Piacenza’s production facilities, the existing infrastructure is suitable for obtaining data to enable the FACTLOG approach; nevertheless, in specific process steps where older equipment is used, the introduction of additional low-cost sensors may be required for the process and product data. The use of cognition to resolve ‘unknown unknowns’, as proposed by the ECT concept, is highly relevant to textile production needs.
In weaving, for example, given that all other parameters are constant, an increase in energy use reveals a wearing of components which can lead to an expected stop of production, this being a continuous process. In finishing, where the process is typically “one-shot” and the characteristics of the fabric change per each design, this direct data interpretation is not possible; the behavior of the production elements and their complex relations must be revealed in order to capture the realities of this process.
The other pilots of the project are in the areas of waste-to-fuel transformer plants, oil refineries, automotive manufacturer,s and steel manufacturers. https://www.factlog.eu/pilots
Stay tuned and follow us through the following links:
Project website: https://www.factlog.eu/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Factlog_EU
