A structured approach for the instantiation of digital twins

Production environments are getting too complex for companies to understand every detail of their process. Furthermore, the amount of data is getting too large to oversee. With the development of digital twins, industry is trying to solve the need for an overview of and insight in their complex systems and data. Existing research efforts hardly provide an explicit and structured approach for setting up digital twins nor for connecting them to already existing digital twins. Therefore, this paper presents a framework that supports the instantiation of more goal-oriented and dynamic digital twins in a fast, easy and structured way, with inherent connectivity to already existing digital twin(s). In a research-by-design approach the framework and a number of instantiations are co-developed. Initial applications of the framework demonstrate that the architecture and development approach render the development of digital twins for industry more feasible and tangible; with that, the framework is a purposeful foundation for further developments.