The concept of digital factories is becoming more popular among the manufactures due to its contributions in simplifying the work of plant engineers and reducing time to market of the products [1]. The main aim of this thesis was to investigate the possible applications of a digital copy of production processes by creating a virtual model of a seam sealing line in the paint department at Scania in Oskarshamn. The main usage of the virtual model was to perform offline programming of the robots. The benefits of offline programming were investigated and compared to online programming. Some comparisons between offline and online programming were made when it comes to the time needed for programming, the accuracy of generated robot paths, the workflow of both approaches and the required knowledge to turn from online programming to offline programming.

The result of the conducted experiment showed that the time of robot programming can be reduced, and the accuracy of robot paths increases by implementing an offline programming tool. The other application of virtual which was investigated in this thesis was virtual commissioning. Virtual commissioning is a method used to test and validate robot and control (PLC) programs in a virtual environment before implementing in the real plant. The software in the loop was selected as an approach for building the virtual commissioning model after presenting the different existed approaches. The result of the model showed great benefits of virtual commissioning not just in reducing the time of traditional of the new built line but even when replacing parts in an already existing manufacturing. Virtual commissioning is still new in the manufacturing, therefore, there are many issues which should be solved to get an optimal model that imitates perfectly the real plant.