Digital Product Development Process

Due to the long service life of rail vehicles, the availability of spare parts is a major challenge for railroad companies. With the help of additive manufacturing (AM), it is possible to produce spare parts cost-effectively in small quantities and thus reduce stock levels. However, the technical information required for older components, such as dimensions, weight and material, is usually only available in technical drawings and not in the digital master data. 

To overcome this challenge, Fraunhofer uses text mining-based analyses of technical drawings and their headers. This automatically extracts and digitizes AM-relevant information from the documents. In addition, knowledge graphs are used to link the collected technical data with data from ERP systems, technical documentation, etc. and combine it in a data hub for a digital product development process.