Selected Applications of Virtual Reality in Manufacturing

Virtual reality (VR) has become an important and useful tool in science and engineering. VR applications cover a wide range of industrial areas from product design to analysis, from product prototyping to manufacturing. The design and manufacturing of a product can be viewed, evaluated and improved in a virtual environment before its prototype is made, which is an enormous cost saving. Virtual Manufacturing (VM) is the use of computer models and simulations of manufacturing processes to aid in the design and production of manufactured products. VM is the use of manufacturing-based simulations to optimize the design of product and processes for a specific manufacturing goal such as: design for assembly; quality; lean operations; and/or flexibility.