Digital Twin and Cyber-Physical Systems for Industrial Assets: Challenges and Recommendations.

Abstract

As organizations Implement DT and CPS with the aim to enhance their productivity and maximize the value from the physical assets, some issues come to light with the integration of said technologies, which affect both environments, the cyber one and the physical one, and as happen when new technical or technological trends become part of organizations problems that were part of their processes come to light but also they start creating new issues that industries must recognize to know where they are in their path to having a fully developed digital environment.

The Thesis addresses the main challenges identified in the research paper of applications for DT and CPS from the Huma-Technology-Organization (HTO) and Work Process perspective of different sectors in a general overview. In order to get an understanding of what is a DT and the CPS, the Thesis presents definitions on the AM and digitalization related terms such as IIoT, IoT, BIM, and other associated terms. The work aims to clearly outline the CPS and the DT from what integrates them, the basic building blocks, and how they interact together for the industries and differentiate one from the other.

The work process includes investigating research papers, digital books, and e-books that have application examples on applications from the industry sectors of Construction, Health, and Energy of the DT and CPS. Also, the recommendations from research papers and technical proposals on how the new disruptive technologies are going to shape the next step for the industries.

The author selects the recommendations that could aid in the mitigation or eradication of the issues found from the applications by stating the possible benefits that these technological trends could bring in the same perspective used for the challenges.

From this work, a fair conclusion is that industries have to implement the DT and CPS. However, organizations have to do it, so their processes are not affected or end up costing more in further adaptations. Managers and decision-makers have to include everyone in the business to fully integrate the DT and CPS and evaluate the organization's maturity in the path for digital transformation.