AITocArtificial Intelligence supported Tool Chain in Manufacturing Engineering

Project vision

The development of an integrated tool-chain for manufacturing engineering that supports decision-making in early phases.

Modern approaches for manufacturing engineering rely heavily on software tools for planning, simulation, and automation. While these tools are highly sophisticated in their area of application, interoperability is a problem due to missing standards and incompatibilities between tools, methods, and formats. Engineering software tools therefore must be adapted to each company’s needs, with great effort, as the number of variants and combinations in which a production system can be built is huge. The AIToC scope and approach include the development of existing or new tools for requirements definition and management, generation of process plans, generation of equipment models, and layout generation. ​

Finnish consortium

Led by LUT University, the Finnish consortium is composed of partners supporting the overall value chain for fundamental developments, planning, simulating, optimization of manufacturing engineering and training using artificial intelligence in the context of the heavy machinery and industrial sites as well as exploitation of these leading-edge developments locally and exporting those internationally as a part of the complex value propositions: end-product or services. With these partners, covering the whole value chain, the Finnish consortium can develop the core concepts, software modules, simulation tools with major features needed for simulating ergonomic human motion alongside the manufacturing value chain.​

Check out the consortium

International project partners

As an ITEA 4 project, the AIToC project consists of four national consortiums, Sweden, Germany, Finland and Turkey. The Finnish consortium project is funded by Business Finland. The goal if AITOC is to develop an integrated toolchain for manufacturing engineering that supports decision-making in early phases. To achieve this, the toolchain will support the formalisation and automated analysis of requirements, the computer-aided generation of process plans, simulation models and instructions and the software supported generation of layouts. In all of these dimensions, Artificial Intelligence will be utilised in expert systems and simulations based on data from existing solutions. The interoperability of engineering tools is also in focus and will be developed using standardised neutral data formats.​

Funding

The AIToC project is a Co-Innovation project funded by Business Finland, under the Sustainable Manufacturing Finland – program (Dnro 44772/31/2020). The duration of the project is 01.03.2021- 29.02.2024, and the Responsible Leader Professor Aki Mikkola, LUT University. The project is a part of the international E! ITEA – community. ITEA is the Eureka RD&I Cluster on software innovation, enabling a large international community of large industry, SMEs, start-ups, academia and customer organisations, to collaborate in funded projects that turn innovative ideas into new businesses, jobs, economic growth and benefits for society. It is industry-driven and covers a wide range of business opportunities facilitated by digitisation like smart mobility, healthcare, smart cities and energy, manufacturing, engineering and safety & security.