NATURE AND FEATURES OF SMART FACTORY

Abstract

The article is devoted to the theoretical research of the newest phenomenon in the economy of the XXI century - a Smart Factory. The theoretical approaches to the interpretation of the concept of "Smart Factory" are generalized. It has been established that the Smart Factory in the most general form is called the implementation of the concept of "digitalization" of industrial and infrastructural productions in order to improve their operational and business efficiency. Based on literary sources, the “Smart Factory” is distinguished from the “Factory of the Future”, which includes not only smart factory, but also Virtual and Digital companies, each of which has its purpose and means of its implementation. Smart Factory is a component of the Industry 4.0 concept and is based on the use of nine significant results of scientific and technological progress achieved at the end of the 20th and early 21st centuries: 1) Big Data and Analytics; 2) Autonomous Robots; 3) Simulation; 4) Horizontal and Vertical System Integration; 5) The Industrial Internet of Things; 6) Cybersecurity; 7) The Cloud;
8) Additive Manufacturing; 9) Augmented Reality. The basic characteristics of Smart Production (smart response, operational assets, adaptability, information accessibility, real-time data collection and processing, responsiveness, environmental friendliness, intelligence, flexible management, tactics for strategy) are revealed. On the basis of the analysis, the main advantages of smart factory (the possibility of mass production of products with individual characteristics, greater speed and flexibility of all production and logistics processes, increase of safety in dangerous industrial conditions, improvement of quality of manufactured goods and services), which can be implemented in conditions development of information economy.