Enabling the Future of Manufacturing with Digital Twins

Opportunities and obstacles

Javad Ghofrani, Darian Lemke, Tassilo Söldner
JournalIndustry 4.0 Science
Issue Volume 41, Edition 3, Pages 72-81
Bibliography Share Cite Download

Abstract

Digital twins connect physical and digital systems, furthering efficiency, enabling predictive maintenance, and allowing the production of more customized products. Despite these advantages, challenges such as high costs, data synchronization, and security risks hinder widespread adoption. This article explores the potential of digital twins and examines key barriers to integration and implementation, also considering some industrial applications including additive manufacturing as a relevant use case.

Keywords

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Article

Digital twins (DTs) are virtual replicas of physical assets, processes, or systems. Along with real-time data, simulations, and analytics, DTs are a crucial tool for optimizing processes and product life cycles. DTs have thus become an integral part of digitization (4IR) in industrial production [1] recently. DTs are increasingly transforming industries [2], particularly manufacturing, by enabling real-time simulations, monitoring, and optimization. DTs contain virtual representations of physical objects and processes, allowing workflow optimization, early fault detection, and faster innovation [3]. Despite growing interest in DTs, as illustrated in Figure 1, …

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Potentials: Energy Efficiency Innovation Resource Efficiency Strategy
Solutions: Logistics Process Management Production Planning Quality Management Safety

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