Digital Twin in Industrial Application – Requirements to a Comprehensive Data Model
gard PLM as the mechanism capable of es-
tablishing digital twins with solid founda-
tions and consistent contents 5 .
with the resulting digital twin. This digital
twin then reflects real-world data and makes
it possible to utilize the data upstream in the
process in order to optimize design and pro-
gress (“closed-loop engineering”).
PLM deals with product information in a very
detailed and granular manner due to its de-
sign focus (“Engineering-BOM”). Applying
this information to a digital twin makes
downsizing (quantitative reduction) neces-
sary: as described above, not every screw or
resistor is relevant for the monitoring and
analysis of operations. In fact, quite the op-
posite is true: too many details would cause
friction and overhead in the processes.
Describing and transporting Digital Twins
The next aspect is to describe a technical
means that makes it possible to capture and
distribute digital twins.
As an analogy, one could say that a STEP-
model 7 for digital twins is required, i.e. a for-
mat allowing for the exchange of digital
twins over system boundaries in high pro-
cess quality. IIoT systems are mostly and—as
far as we can see—will generally remain pro-
prietary, at least in their specific customiza-
tions, due to the business cases they have to
cover: we need only consider the above-
mentioned different scenarios and system
requirements that apply to OEM and compo-
nent suppliers as an example. If we bear
these differences in mind, it seems normal to
assume that there will be friction and data
loss (e.g. due to improper matching, incom-
patible categorization, etc.) at the interfaces
between the source and target systems
(based on a comparison of the quality of the
internal data and the transferred data). By
making the transfer format more compre-
hensive, it will be possible to reduce these
losses and achieve high process quality in
While reducing the structures involved in
digital twins is highly beneficial, it is crucial
not to lose the link to the design perspective.
This is vital for channeling feedback from the
field into the engineering processes. To im-
plement such a closed-loop engineering pro-
cess, it is necessary to take a retrospective
view from the downsized structure of the
digital twin to the engineering-BOM. 6
Up to this point, the data provision process
is very similar to that found in collaboration
scenarios in engineering, e.g. in the case of
joint ventures or consortia. In engineering,
this is the point at which we regard the “ab-
stract” product in terms of a design. How-
ever, if we move away from these typical
PLM-based approaches, we have to consider
the “thing” in terms of serialization, together
5
See also: Malakuti, S.; Schlake, J.; Grüner, S.; Schulz, D.; Gitzel, R.; Schmitt, J.; Platenius-Mohr, M.; Vorst, P.: Digital twin – a key
software component of Industry 4.0. ABB Review 12/2018.
6
Dickopf, T.; Apostolov, H.; Müller, P.; Göbel, J.; Forte, S.: A Holistic System Lifecycle Engineering Approach. 29 th CIRP Design
2019.
7
Wikipedia: ISO 10303 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10303), visited 6 September 2019
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