In order to remain competitive on increasingly global markets, small and medium-sized companies are under rising pressure to manufacture products that are at the same time of high quality and often customer-specific, but must also be produced within a short time-frame and at competitive prices. To achieve this, companies need production systems that have short start-up times, are flexibly reconfigurable and can be adapted to fluctuating demand.

The PRIME research project, partially funded by the 7th framework programme of the European Commission, is developing a software toolbox and methodology for plug and produce assembly systems in manufacturing. PRIME includes multi-agent control, dynamic knowledge-sharing, integrated monitoring and innovative human-machine interaction mechanisms. This decreases ramp-up times (especially of control software), pro-actively supports changes in the production process and optimizes error-recovery and operational performance improvement. PRIME can be used in various industries, for example in the automotive and pharma industry as well as in the fields of consumer goods,  medical technology and electronics.

SimPlan is software partner in the PRIME project and involved in the development of the software toolbox and of innovative operating concepts. The results will directly improve usability and flexibility of existing SimPlan solutions for production control and detailed planning (for more information please visit the SimPlan Systems homepage).

Apart from SimPlan, nine further Partners were part of the PRIME research project, among them the University of Nottingham and the ZHAW School of Engineering in Zurich, as well as Siemens AG, CSEM SA, UNINOVA Institute, Technology Transfer System, TQC, Asyril SA and Introsys SA. The Project ran for three years from November 2012 to October 2015.