V. SMART FACTORIESWhen advanced tec

V. SMART FACTORIESWhen advanced technologies such as big data, intelligent robots, and virtual personal assistants were taken into consideration, all industrial structures were transformed into smart factories, and all physical production systems gained more intelligent characteristics. With the integration between the physical and the virtual world, industrial processes, machines used in the manufacturing processes and factories have become more intelligent. Nowadays, all industrial processes have become more automatic. High-technologies have led to the creation of new production systems which have the most autonomous characteristic. Today, the most important principal of smart factories is coordination and interaction between all operations realized from the supplier to the customer. The basis of the smart factories is the cyber physical systems. In other words, cyber-physical systems can be defined as the heart of the smart factories. These systems can solve highly complex problems related with supply chain operations and production. Physical industrial conditions can be modelled in the virtual environment thanks to digitalization. Before the physical production, all production processes can be created in the virtual world. In this way, the positive and negative situations which may occur in the physical production process can be detected. Finally, determining the measures according to potential risks and problems may be possible. In addition to that, all factors as machines, human force, equipment and industrial processes can be optimized in this way, idle capacity would not be possible in manufacturing activities. As a result, efficiency and productivity can be achieved at the highest level in all industrial processes.