Virtual engineering in the support of sustainable assembly systems

Virtual Engineering (VE) has always been a great aid in the design phase of manufacturing systems in terms of structural system description, behaviour simulation and interfacing between the different subsystems. To this end, virtual engineering capabilities have a strong potential to be employed in manufacturing system sustainability at different phases of the system life cycle beyond the design phase. In response to the sustainable manufacturing requirements (namely 6R), this paper discusses the opportunities VE provides to support sustainable manufacturing over the life cycle phases considering the latest industrial developments in manufacturing i.e. Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing. A framework of virtual engineering tools integration with 6R is introduced, then a discussion of the expected contributions follows. To demonstrate the applicability of the previously mentioned concepts, a case study of an on-going industrial project is exemplified with its results discussion.