Today's most sophisticated software enables the planner, designer, architect, engineer to design the floor plan in augmented, virtual reality. This software combines augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). The combination of VR and AR provide immense advances for factory floor planning.
Utilizing prescribed measurements, dimensions, and other data, designers can add virtually augmented equipment and personnel to the floor plan. The equipment and personnel can be viewed through a VR headset. Viewing can be done individually or simultaneously with the entire design team.
The implementation of virtual technology has broken ground in areas not considered previously. These include the unique flooring arrangements common to trade show events and mass production manufacturing. Given the site layout an event floor plan can be planned to extract maximum efficiency.
Designing a factory floor is a huge undertaking and mistakes in the floor plan can be crushing. Virtual factories allow the design team to see the production flow between all the various constituents (people, robots, equipment) before the physical plant begins to form.
As virtual technology continues to make major advances, its use in the design and modification of factory floor plans is becoming more common place. The answer to many efficiency, cost, safety and other floor planning problems may lie in the latest virtual technology software.
After using VR to optimize your factory floor setup, consider investing in a robust ERP solution such as VISIBILITY ERP to ensure that your shop floor runs as smoothly as planning it's setup.