Abstract
Nowadays, industrial industries are challenged by unstable and highly variable customer demand. Therefore, effective planning of industrial equipment provides companies with a significant competitive advantage by maximizing the layout efficiency and minimizing the intralogistics costs. Although industrial layout planning is a standard activity conducted in practice, it is highly time consuming requiring a large amount of data that is often difficult to gather and elaborate. On the other hand, Digital Factory Planning has the potential to significantly reduce the planning effort, by enhancing collaboration between the planning team and provide a better understanding through the immersion with virtual- and augmented reality (VR, AR). This paper proposes a framework for the collaborative Digital Factory Planning process in industrial settings. More in detail, it provides a framework to develop the digital model in collaboration between the planning actors of different hierarchical levels (e.g., supply chain manager and head of departments), exploring to which extent VR and AR can support the planning and validation process. The framework is tested within a factory re-layout project / brown field planning) conducted within a North Italian automotive supplier company and by using the digital factory planning software visTABLE®.