Abstract
Digital Twins and the Internet-of -Things (IoT) are going to boost many applications based on information and communication technology. A study of COOM19 indicates that the technology of a Digital Twin is about to be established in Industry. It was found that “62 percent (of companies questioned) are either in the process of establishing Digital Twin use or plans to do so”. Many authors agree that these new technologies will connect virtually everything from customers to machines and logistics. AutomationML is an important standard and relevant enabler for the creation, adaption and management of the Digital Twin. In the near future, it is expected that machines will communicate with one another, logistics and machinery will be self-controlled and all plans can be projected by simulation, which supports decision-making. From this perspective, the Digital Twin is a novel and enabling technology, which can be spread easier and faster with the use of AML. The demands of markets to release constantly market-driven innovations, compels industrial manufacturing companies to increase both the use of automated production systems and their reconfiguration during their lifecycle. Increasing product variety and shortening product life cycles require a fast and inexpensive reconfiguration of existing production systems AJS+18a. To face these challenges, one solution is to use the Digital Twins of automated manufacturing systems. The value-add of a Digital Twin for reconfiguration, promises the reconfiguration time to be reduced and thus an increase of the system availability as well as customer-specific products to be manufactured at short notice. A simulative environment using a Digital Twin enables automated systems to be quickly and easily reconfigured by a virtual test in simulation. The recommissioning and reconfiguration of the real manufacturing system therefore requires less working time, is less error prone and thereby, reducing costs. However, such savings are only worthwhile if the effort of creating the digital twin is covered by the savings from the above-mentioned benefits. It is evident that the Digital Twin should be implemented by integrated software systems, such as product lifecycle management (PLM) systems, and should also be based on standards such as AML. The implementation of AML for PLM systems combines the benefits of both and enables the managed utilization of many different tools with standardized interface and thereby helps reducing the barriers for its creation.
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