Innovative VR environment for factory and process planning: DiFac

In the last years the production paradigm of European Industry sector has changed. More and more, bigger companies are adopting Virtual Reality (VR) tools in their production chains, while the SMEs are still looking for more customised solution: more suitable for their dimension and less expensive. DiFac is an IST research project (FP6-2005-IST-5-035079) funded by the European Commission within the 6^th Framework Programme priority "Collaborative Working Environment". The project aims to the development of an innovative Collaborative Manufacturing Environment (CME) for the next generation of Digital Factory in order to support SMEs competitiveness. The framework is based on three main pillars: presence, ergonomic and collaboration. They are composed by both tools and methodologies. This is the base on which the tools for supporting the manufacturing activities are developed on. This paper shortly presents the architecture of the Factory Constructor.