Digital twin-based cyber physical production system architectural framework for personalized production

Personalized production is a manufacturing concept relevant to the fourth industrial revolution, which can satisfy various customer needs inexpensively. There are three main hurdles to the efficient implementation of this concept: access, cost, and performance. This paper proposes a digital twin-based cyber physical production system (CPPS) architectural framework that overcomes the performance hurdle. The proposed architectural framework comprises five services that are solutions to the performance hurdle of personalized production, and it operates on information based on the proposed product, process, plan, plant, and resource (P4R) information model. This information model is manufacturing abstraction for personalized production and is presented on a detailed level with object-orientation and the “type and instance” concept. Whereas previous studies on the digital twin concept considered one or several facilities and focused on the development of independent applications, this study focuses on the digital twin as a core technological element of the entire system and analyzes CPPS design and its operation from the system-of-systems perspective. The application of the digital twin-based CPPS to a micro smart factory (MSF) provides an advanced solution for the personalized production of various products. An average makespan improvement of ~ 26.87% was achieved using the implemented CPPS services in the MSF.