Fábrica Inteligente is a programme promoted by the Xunta de Galicia through the Galician Innovation Agency whose, objective is to assist large R&D&I business projects with a strategic nature for the industrial sector, aligned with RIS3 Galicia and with the international trends of the factory of the future, the smart factory and Industry 4.0.

This is the framework for efiFACTORY, a project promoted by the Galician Automotive Technology Centre (CTAG) and the vehicle component manufacturer BorgWarner Vigo. The initiative, developed over the last four years with a 2.5-million-euro public-private investment, has focused on researching and developing new 4.0 manufacturing technologies that allow BorgWarner's production processes to evolve towards a new model based on efficiency, flexibility and sustainability. More specifically, areas such as intelligent operations management, advanced automation, logistics 4.0 and energy efficiency were addressed.

As a result of this joint effort, the project has enabled new products to be developed, production processes to be improved and advanced manufacturing problems to be solved. The results endorse efiFACTORY as a success story of the multiplier effect that cooperation between knowledge centres and industry has on progress towards Industry 4.0.

Project lines of action and impact

Focusing on digitalisation and data analysis, the development of the various lines of action within the efiFACTORY project has led to a 20% increase in the plant's various productivity processes; 100% unit traceability of production, by associating all the information relating to the manufacturing and quality attributes of each part (process parameters, dimensional quality, etc.); the improvement of maintenance management, reducing action time by 15% per intervention; and the redesign of processes for the efficient use of resources, achieving a reduction in consumption of more than 10%.

In addition, communication technologies have been developed to allow for the plant to operate more autonomously in fast-moving environments, enhancing its digitalisation; implementing specific advanced automation and robotics applications; increasing the sustainability of BorgWarner's manufacturing processes; and the conception of physical and virtual models that serve as an engine to launch advanced solutions for the factory of the future.

The technical scope accumulated after the four years of efiFACTORY implementation has allowed new advanced knowledge to be generated in the field of 4.0 technological solutions, together with 14 enabling technologies to increase the added value of plant operations related to automation.