A digital twin driven design method for sustainable product-service systems

Abstract

The current market demand for cheaper customized products, with shorter development time, combined with the advancement in digitalization and a shift toward a more service-oriented product, has forced industries to evolve and develop new tools, especially within the manufacturing industry. The digital twin is one of the popular concepts that has shown great potential and benefits. However, the digital twin faces many limitations in its implementation and requires huge capital, making it challenging to adopt, especially for small to medium enterprises (SMEs). This study utilized the Neo4j graph database and graph algorithms to devise an easy, affordable, and universal method for companies to start adopting the DT concept into day-to-day operations. The proposed method is useful for identifying the course of action that needs to be taken to eradicate defects, arranged in order of its importance and impact on other processes. A manufacturing process in a company was chosen as a case study for this study.