Digital twins for advanced decision support through the lifecycle of manufacturing systems

Digital twins are envisioned as a key component for advanced decision support through the lifecycle of different socio-technical systems. This vision can be discussed by relying on the growing literature that brings perspective of applications of digital twins across different lifecycle phases. In this context, as they are an essential part of a cyber-physical system, digital twins are showing the potential to provide advanced functionalities for monitoring and prediction, control and evaluation of the performance of the physical assets, up to the inclusion of optimization use cases. Given this general trend, the current presentation focuses on the adoption of digital twins to support decisions and activities related to the manufacturing systems along their lifecycle. The purpose is to reflect on the relevance of the lifecycle management as a driving concept in order to deal with different requirements posed on digital twinning for decision-making. Model-based and data-driven methods are ensembled in the digital twin models, and this approach is described through selected examples of decision support, ranging from the design and virtual commissioning, to the production and maintenance management tasks. As a concluding remark, some final reflections are included in the light of the interactions between humans and digital twins; this enables to foster the role of humans within a digital twin-enabled management system.

Short bio Marco Macchi is Full Professor at the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano. His teaching and research activities regard industrial technologies, asset lifecycle management, operations and maintenance management, smart manufacturing. Serving the scientific community, he is currently the Chair of the technical committee IFAC TC 5.1 Manufacturing Plant Control; he is Member of the IFIP WG 5.7 Advances in Production Management Systems; he is co-leader of the Special Interest Group (SIG) on “Product and Asset Lifecycle Management” at the IFIP TC5 WG 5.7 Advances in Production Management Systems; he is a fellow of the International Society of Engineering Asset Management (ISEAM). Concerning his role in scientific journals, he is Member of the International Editorial Board of Production Planning & Control: the Management of Operations, and he is Associate Editor of the Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing.