Networking of Digital Twins in the Digital Factory for Single Part Manufacturing Simulation

Organizing manufacturing in dynamic networks instead of inflexible production lines is one of the key aspects of Industry 4.0. This should serve to realize automation and effectiveness to a higher degree than previously achievable. For this modernization, Cyber-Physical Systems should be utilized, where a Digital Twin mirrors the behavior of its Physical Twin and makes the data during manufacturing externally available via communication interfaces. This Digital Twin should be an instantiation of a Digital Master, which must meet the requirements for communication in dynamically changing value-added networks. The networking capability of objects requires semantic information. This information is associated with rules for decision making within a value-added network. This paper addresses the need for research on how to add networking capabilities during the development of Digital Masters. With these added capabilities, the communication between Digital Masters and Twins in terms of a single part manufacturing simulation should be verifiable in a Digital Factory. For this purpose, the concept of this paper aims to outline guidelines on how to add networking capabilities to the single part, machines and other resources needed during manufacturing.