Numa - Model Integrated Factory

The Model Integrated Factory is an environment close to real. An office area with several hardware and software equipment, besides a TV and video, and a shop floor with two manufacturing cells compose it.

With a teaching philosophy that is based on giving you plenty of 'hands on' expertise, the aim of FIM is to develop research capacity and facilitate knowledge exchange through services to researchers and business in the field of business processes. These services include:

- acting as focal point for the dissemination of current knowledge and best practice;
- developing research capacity by stimulating interaction between practitioners and researchers;
- providing access to 'best practice' thinking and application;

It is not a large center; hence, it has been essential to concentrate its resources on key themes that evolve out of the experience of the primary users; researchers and practitioners.

The themes are all concerned with organizational adaptation that involves a rigorous re-appraisal of the functions performed and the underlying business processes to which they relate. They deal at root with two key aspects of business process change.

First, the development of business processes within the organizational context, including the exploitation of resources and the evolution of the knowledge base. Second, the adaptation of business processes to shifting contexts through a more coherent understanding of the relationship between business strategy and external conditions. The themes reflect the development and convergence of ongoing debates and activities conducted by FIM. However, they are also integrated by the need to draw upon and contribute towards certain common areas of social science theorizing, particularly those concerned with the multidisciplinary questions of mapping, learning, innovation and human resources.

These technologies will be deployed for large-scale enterprises, suitable for small manufacturing operations.

Several different Concurrent Scenarios characterize FIM. The evolution of each scenario is related to the increasingly complexity of its productive system and the integration of new hardware, software and equipment platform. In this case, it attempts to show alternative solutions that can be connected to an evolutional process.

The Concurrent Scenarios produced at FIM are used in teaching, research and services in different ways. They are the base where the research groups of NUMA test, validate and present the existing CE solutions as well as carry courses and training submerged in an environment which simulates the great majority of the real conditions of a company.

Current educational research into teaching and learning provides a theoretical base upon which to improve education. Technological applications in education should consider individual and cultural differences in learners, engages students in "real science" by presenting them with actual problems currently under investigation in various science disciplines. In attempting to solve these problems, students may access the same datasets used by practicing researchers. The NUMA product, FIM - Model Integrated Factory, described below, use these reality-based approaches

GOALS:
The goals of the Model Integrated Factory are related to the offer of a close to real manufacturing environment, where we search continuously three fundamental conditions that allow:

- To test commercial solutions and other ones under development by the Research Groups of NUMA, being all of them under conditions similar to the ones faced by the manufacturing companies;

- To experiment also the application of new concepts, philosophies, techniques, methods, tools, equipment and solutions under the above mentioned conditions.

- To present in an integrated way the results of the work developed by the NUMA's Groups.

Functioning
People should conduct the available infrastructure as well as the Business Process if we were talking about a real plant. As FIM is a manufacturing environment close to real, its employees are "characters" which represent the persons inside the context of a real plant. These characters have their own functions and assignments and are team-worker in the business process, according to the established structure of FIM.

FIM posses an organization chart with fictitious people, which are personages of one "real Company", with its departments. They have tasks and function in a company that allows the work in multifunctional team, according to the matrix structure idealized for the FIM;

Each character, or each staff member of the FIM posses one specific formation, background and suggestive names according to each task inside the company. All of them are registered at the Human Resources Department that periodically updates all the abilities and new knowledge acquainted through courses and performed activities by the employees. For instance:

Luiza Daliga	Salim Barganha	Pedro Cardinal
Formation: Mechanical Engineering	Formation: Administration	Formation: Mechanical Engineering
Personal Knowledge: Leadership Entrepreneur, outstanding and dynamism	Personal Knowledge: oral ability. Creativity and outstanding	Personal Knowledge: Entrepreneur
Skills: Business holistic vision, Concurrent Engineering; Virtual and Multifunctional team, team recharging, Project techniques, Technical Drawing and Benchmarking	Skills: Business holistic vision Benchmarking; Products set-up, Competitiveness strategies, team recharging	Skills: Performance analysis, Finite Elements
Tools: MS Office; CAPP; AutoCAD and; PDM/EDM	Tools: MS Office; Video Conference	Tools: MS Office; Auto CAD and ; CAPP

The character employee "LUIZA DALIGA", for instance, works at the Engineering Department. Her abilities, such as tooling knowledge, good experience in projects, leadership and team working thinking, proper personality traits confers to her an holistic vision profile to assume the coordination of the product development team at FIM.

"SALIM BARGANHA" is the Commercial Director and has a wide sense of the business, added to proper personal and essential technical characteristics to perform his tasks.

"PEDRO CARDINAL" by his turn, is a specialist in calculus, mainly in the finite elements analysis, however he also has personal talent and a wide vision of the company which allow him to have a good relationship with all other staff members.

Character's Development
The development of a character at FIM follows 02 general types according to NUMA's teaching proposal:

Integrated Architects: ones, like Luiza Daliga and Salim Barganha, who have an integrated vision of the company, fitting them out to solve the problems considering the various aspects of the situation;

Communicative specialist: ones, as Pedro Cardinal who, despite of being specialist in a specific area, has a business whole vision as well as of the tasks related to his own function. Those knowledge fits him out to take actions with the other team work members and to understand and cooperate for the solution of the problems in a wide dimension.

Business Process
Organized in Business Process, based in the process classes of the International Benchmarking Clearinghouse (www.apqc.org) uses Concurrent Engineering to simulate a pre-determined business process and a specific product produced by FIM considering a specific type of company as well as the reference model. The resources and the knowledge basis available at FIM are the production of a scenario support.

Concurrent Engineering Scenario
A Concurrent Scenario is a collection of elements demanded to simulate a pre-determined business process and a specific product produced by FIM considering a specific type of company as well as the reference model. The resources and the knowledge basis available at FIM are the production of a scenario support.

Reference model: a mapped out model containing activities, organization, information and resources of a standard business process, which is the base of reference for the decision making and other approaches
Type of company: an industrial one, involving all activities and particularities of such segment. Thus the role will be close to real.
Product: one of the products already available at FIM

Knowledge: a knowledge base chart detailing all involved knowledge related to the business process domain, concentrated on a web page and linked with other web pages aiming the depth content.

Script: a step-by- step script containing scenes and actions describing a story where the FIM personages perform a product development process.

Activities at FIM
The Concurrent Scenarios produced at FIM can be used in teaching, research and services in different ways. They are the base where the research groups of NUMA test, validate and present the existing CE solutions as well as carry courses and training submerged in an environment which simulates the great majority of the real conditions of a company.

These distinct ways of usage are denominated "applications". (Teaching activities that seek mainly to drive to specific knowledge of a Business Process) and can be ranked according to the following types:

Presentations: where the goal is to give a swift and enlarged vision of the business process and its elements;

Courses: teaching activities aiming to give the necessary basic knowledge and comprises more than one activity at same time as passive or active real life simulation as presentations. Follows a pre- determined script and a menu provided by a questionnaire to be answered by the participants. Depending on the target public can be:

Workshops Rolling Playing Game (RPG): activity where students/visitors who have gained the necessary knowledge use all available resources and the Concurrent Scenarios without a script. They participate in the process autonomously counting on the reference model and at the process-end they will create a script and then simulate all the processes by themselves, thus getting a chance to try out many alternatives and solutions.

Commencing with a Concurrent Scenario and FIM, the visitor obtains the holistic vision of a business and is able to detect the main points to be complemented in his organization, considering all dimensions of a company: qualification, organization, knowledge, activities, information, methods and techniques, resources and solutions and their interrelationships. When a specific personal concern regarding to an area emerges, the visitor can afterwards touch upon the respective development team in charge of the area and driving his queries to improve his company's performance.