MODAPTO’s second pilot takes place at SEW-USOCOME, a leading gearmotor manufacturer, where the focus is on reconfigurable production, predictive maintenance, and real-time optimisation—all essential to ensuring fast delivery and customisation.
SEW’s production process blends automated systems with value-added tasks performed by humans. Ten Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs) currently support intralogistics and employee collaboration. However, no Digital Twin technology is yet applied within these operations.
Now, with MODAPTO, SEW is implementing a Reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS) approach, supported by digital technologies at various stages of the value chain. This pilot explores how Digital Twins (DTs) can help distribute real-time data across the entire process.
From Monolithic to Modular: A Production Transformation
The pilot centres around the production of a specific gearmotor model, currently manufactured via a monolithic production line. Through MODAPTO, the aim is to:
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Digitally replicate individual production modules
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Identify and resolve production bottlenecks
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Integrate predictive maintenance and self-awareness
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Optimise production scheduling and routing dynamically—without changing the production order sequence
This level of flexibility is critical to maintaining SEW’s promise of 5-day delivery (with assembly completed in one shift), even for custom orders. The company is especially focused on line balancing, reconfiguration, automatic setup, personnel allocation, and real-time routing of products through its intralogistics system.
Addressing ICT Challenges in Scheduling and Maintenance
As SEW evolves towards RMS, ICT-related issues such as scheduling optimisation and predictive maintenance planning need to be addressed. Although maintenance is currently scheduled, it lacks capabilities like:
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Predictive analysis
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production simulation
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Self-awareness
These gaps can lead to occasional bottlenecks and unplanned machine issues. MODAPTO’s pilot addresses these challenges by embedding intelligence into each production module.
Supporting a Range of Factory Roles
The pilot is designed around real user stories to reflect daily challenges faced by engineers, technicians, and managers:
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Production Scheduling Team Members and Innovation Engineers can identify bottlenecks in near real-time and respond to disruptions ahead of time.
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Maintenance Engineers and Shop-Floor Managers can compare performance across identical production cells, receive alerts about failing modules, and access predictive maintenance suggestions.
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Engineers can evaluate different production setups, confirm decisions for the line, and notify operators accordingly.
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Operators can report production drift, such as delays or bottlenecks, helping managers take timely corrective actions.
Looking Ahead
The pilot demonstrates how simulation and optimisation tools, paired with self-awareness and predictive maintenance, can support efficient, uninterrupted manufacturing. These capabilities not only enhance daily operations but also ensure SEW can assess and adapt new production schemes—whether that involves new schedules or entirely new product lines.