When a working factory is set up in a showroom, manufacturing processes come alive. Once again, TRUMPF has gone to extraordinary lengths not only by creating a hands-on experience of connected production but also by framing it in a futuristic vision that offers revolutionary perspectives. A control room equipped with numerous monitors, many of them transparent, looks directly out over the shop floor and all the machinery. And an elevated walkway spanning the entire production hall provides a bird’s-eye view of the digitally connected facility. TRUMPF’s smart factory in Chicago shows the modern face of sheet metalworking using the latest tools. Unlike other demonstration centers which focus on individual products, here visitors can see the fully orchestrated interaction between elements in the production system. The Chicago demo center enables customers to visualize their entire value chain and even simulate their own job schedules.
Chicago was consciously chosen as the location for the Smart Factory. The directly adjacent states contain around 40 percent of the country’s entire sheet metal working industry.
Picture: Steve Hall © Hall+Merrick
The building links the history of the "Rust Belt" as the oldest and largest industrial region in the USA with high-tech digitally connected production.
Picture: Steve Hall © Hall+Merrick
The Industry 4.0 offerings at TRUMPF are all subsumed under the name TruConnect. All the key TruConnect modules are in operation at the Chicago plant, enabling comprehensive demonstration of production according to the principles of Industry 4.0.
Picture: Steve Hall © Hall+Merrick
The “Control Room” - a command center with large display areas – makes various process parameters available to visitors in real time.
Picture: Steve Hall © Hall+Merrick
In a production hall measuring 55 meters in length, there is a connected sheet metal production with a central storage system as the centerpiece, which supplies the machine tools with material.
Picture: Steve Hall © Hall+Merrick
The focus of the Smart Factory is to advise and train customers on the introduction of digitally connected production solutions.
Picture: Steve Hall © Hall+Merrick
A bird’s-eye view of the factory reveals a catwalk, the so-called “Skywalk”: Spanning the full length of the 55-meter-long hall, with its material and information flow, it emphasizes the fact that the production facilities constitute a single, overall system.
Picture: Steve Hall © Hall+Merrick
The Skywalk is part of the cantilevered ceiling structure that is manufactured by a TRUMPF customer in Atlanta.
Picture: Steve Hall © Hall+Merrick
The production line is designed in such a way that entire real production processes can be carried out.
The construction costs of the 5,500 square meter building estimated at about 13 million euros. It was designed by the Berlin architectural office of Barkow Leibinger.
