Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Publication
    Sustainable product lifecycle management with Digital Twins: A systematic literature review
    ( 2023-07)
    Seegrün, Anne
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    Kruschke, Thomas
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    Mügge, Janine
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    Hardinghaus, Louis
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    Knauf, Tobias
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    A Digital Twin (DT) is a virtual replica of a product or product-service system, which can be used to provide transparency of a product's sustainability and to positively influence the ecological impact throughout its lifecycle by means of intelligent data analytics. This paper identifies current sustainability-focused application scenarios of DTs in the manufacturing industry and outlines the results of a systematic literature review (SLR). The identification of the state-of-the-art and the assessment of current DT concepts with regard to the addressed product lifecycle phases, technological maturity and sustainability scope point towards key directions to guide future research.
  • Publication
    End-of-life decision support to enable circular economy in the automotive industry based on digital twin data
    ( 2023)
    Mügge, Janine
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    Hahn, Inka Rebekka
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    Chatzis, Johannes
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    Boes, Joachim
    With the EU Green Deal and the UN Sustainable Developments Goals, the vision of a greenhouse gas-neutral and resource-efficient economy is already firmly anchored in world politics. In this context, the automotive industry faces many challenges including the increasing scarcity of natural resources, a rising demand in terms of sustainable vehicle design, production and materials sourcing. Due to all this, end-of-life decisions regarding dismantling have become increasingly important. A high proportion of secondary materials will be required in the vehicles of the future. To response to these challenges, companies have turned their focus towards the circular economy as a central approach to close material loops. In the German research project “Catena-X” a new data ecosystem with digital twins is one enabler that is being developed. The digital twins represent a promising approach to the circular economy by ensuring transparent, product-specific and end-to-end data exchange throughout the entire product lifecycle, from the material sourcing to the eventual dismantling and recycling. As one particular and unique solution, a decision framework that facilitates the best circular strategy at the end of a vehicle's life is developed and presented in this paper. The underlying data-driven decision support framework is based on circular economy KPIs. This includes material, components and specific vehicle KPIs to best identify the most suitable circular strategy. The framework was methodologically developed by an interdisciplinary team of partners, who are stakeholders throughout the value chain and participants in the Catena-X project. An integrated approach of user-centered design, an adapted version of the V-model and the Scaled Agile Framework were used for the methodology in the development of the solution. The paper presents the concept of a digital twin for a decision support system, that includes a central decision logic that also includes the relevant KPIs and a survey for evaluating the decision logic utilised with a chosen dismantling company.
  • Publication
    Digital Twins for Sustainability in the Context of Biological Transformation
    ( 2023)
    Seegrün, Anne
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    Mügge, Janine
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    Applying biological principles that are similar to those found in nature to product engineering and manufacturing offers new approaches to product and production systems and might lead to a significant contribution towards sustainability. By transferring materials, structures, and processes of natural to digital ecosystems industrial value creation can be optimized. A promising approach to establish a networked, self-regulating digital ecosystem represents a digital twin. The potential of digital twins within the context of biological transformation has not been researched yet. This paper attempts to provide a first entry into the research topic by identifying biological principles within the concept of a digital twin and analyzing its potential for biological transformation in the industry. As a main result, the paper presents a list of relevant principles of biological transformation based on a structured taxonomy. These are specified within the concept of a digital twin.
  • Publication
    Methodology to develop Digital Twins for energy efficient customizable IoT-Products
    Products are increasingly individualized and enhanced to be able to communicate, e.g. via Industrial Internet of Things (IoT). However, the impact of products on sustainability (environmental and social) across their life is often not considered and analyzed. IoT-based or smart products, that are able to communicate, generate data, which can be used to monitor and optimize sustainability indicators. The Digital Twin (DT) is a new technological concept which focuses on product individual data collection and analysis. It provides the possibility to make use of the available data and optimize the systems individual sustainability as well as future product generations. However, the design and realization of such a DT requires new approaches and capabilities, which is an identified research gap. Therefore, this paper presents a methodology to develop DTs of physical IoT-based products, the so called DT V-Model with the aim to optimize the systems sustainability, specifically environmental aspects. It is based on the V-model for the development of smart products and is enhanced with additional roles and approaches for DT development. The methodology is described in detail. The result of a development cycle according to the DT-V-Model is a tested concept of a DT, which includes Digital Master (DM) data from the planning phase and Digital Shadow (DS) data from the production, operation and End of Life-phase. For a DT for energy efficiency, the Digital Master model consists of the information and models from the product development phase including the planned production and use phase energy consumption. The Digital Shadow consists of the actual production energy consumption and the use phase energy consumption. The methodology is applied to a use case of an IoT-based consumer product that can be customized to a certain degree by the consumer. A DT is developed to monitor and optimize the products energy efficiency in production and use. The necessary elements of the DT and the capabilities are depicted. The paper shows the feasibility of the methodology for the development of DTs, the necessary adaptions to common approaches for development and the specific characteristics of DT development for the aim of energy efficiency.
  • Publication
    User centered development of a digital twin concept with focus on sustainability in the clothing industry
    ( 2020) ;
    Dorfhuber, Lisa
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    Stark, Rainer
    The optimization of a product's socio-economic and environmental impact is gaining more relevance for customers and regulating institutions. Still, there is a gap between sustainable attitude and behavior. In this context, new technologies are explored to stimulate sustainable consumers' behavior. This paper aims at analyzing the concept of a Digital Twin and its sustainability impact. The authors present a user centered development of a Digital Clothing Twin with the aim to foster sustainability in the Mid-of-life and End-of-Life-phase. The sustainability impact of the Digital Twin concept as a potential solution as well as part of the problem is discussed.