Demonstration and evaluation of a digital twin-based virtual factory

Abstract

Smart manufacturing, tailored by the 4th industrial revolution and forces like innovation, competition, and changing demands, lies behind the concurrent evolution (also known as co-evolution) of products, processes and production systems. Manufacturing companies need to adapt to ever-changing environments by simultaneously reforming and regenerating their product, process, and system models as well as goals and strategies to stay competitive. However, the ever-increasing complexity and ever-shortening lifecycles of product, process and system domains challenge manufacturing organization’s conventional approaches to analysing and formalizing models and processes as well as management, maintenance and simulation of product and system life cycles. The digital twin-based virtual factory (VF) concept, as an integrated simulation model of a factory including its subsystems, is promising for supporting manufacturing organizations in adapting to dynamic and complex environments. In this paper, we present the demonstration and evaluation of previously introduced digital twin-based VF concept to support modelling, simulation and evaluation of complex manufacturing systems while employing multi-user collaborative virtual reality (VR) learning/training scenarios. The concept is demonstrated and evaluated using two different wind turbine manufacturing cases, including a wind blade manufacturing plant and a nacelle assembly line. Thirteen industry experts who have diverse backgrounds and expertise were interviewed after their participation in a demonstration. We present the experts’ discussions and arguments to evaluate the DT-based VF concept based on four dimensions, namely, dynamic, open, cognitive, and holistic systems. The semi-structured conversational interview results show that the DT-based VF stands out by having the potential to support concurrent engineering by virtual collaboration. Moreover, DT-based VF is promising for decreasing physical builds and saving time by virtual prototyping (VP).

Digital Twin‐Based Modeling of Complex Systems for Smart Aging

“…e digital twin system is essentially a functional system that combines physical entities and twin models into a continuous process control optimization, so the digital twin has also become one of the core technologies of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Gartner, a leading IT industry consulting and research firm, has listed digital twin as one of the top 10 strategic technology trends of the future for three consecutive years from 2017 to 2019 and considers digital twin to include the following: metadata, situation, event data, and analytics, a multifaceted software model of a thing or system that relies on sensors as well as other data to understand its situation, respond to change, improve operations, and add value [5].…”

Virtual Prototyping: Evaluating the Digital Twin Based Virtual Factory for New Product Introduction

“…Thus, the cost per megawatt oriented tendering approach results in significant pressure on WTG manufacturing companies to improve the performance of their turbines by redesigning their products, together with the associated processes and manufacturing systems. In this regard, the Digital Twin (DT) based Virtual Factory (VF) concept [11] is becoming a highly relevant solution by enabling integration, interoperability, and interaction capabilities across product and production lifecycle processes in virtual environments [12].…”

“…In recent studies, the DT based VF is considered a promising solution to deal with coevolution problems with its potential to achieve dynamic, open, holistic, and cognitive system capabilities [12], [13]. Moreover, industry experts considered Virtual Prototyping (VP) among the highest value promising industrial use cases for the DT based VF concept [12].…”

“…In recent studies, the DT based VF is considered a promising solution to deal with coevolution problems with its potential to achieve dynamic, open, holistic, and cognitive system capabilities [12], [13]. Moreover, industry experts considered Virtual Prototyping (VP) among the highest value promising industrial use cases for the DT based VF concept [12]. Although a virtual prototype as a computer simulation of a physical product covers all product lifecycle aspects, including service and maintenance [8], building and testing, the virtual prototype of NPI processes is particularly challenging due to the need for concurrent engineering and complex and ambiguous models and operations.…”

“…However, due to the same challenges, VP maintains a significant potential for high value by enabling (1) early testing, (2) expensive or impossible tests, (3) fewer physical builds, (4) safer builds, (5) increased agility, (6) reduced cost, (7) complexity handling, and (8) reduced time to market [14]. Thus, the need for evaluating the DT based VF concept in more particular VP use cases was raised in [12].…”