A Vision for a Platform-based Digital-Twin Ecosystem

Abstract The widespread adoption of digital technology tied with the 4th industrial revolution means the complete reinvention of how business is done. Digital Twin (DT) technologies are now a key technology trend that is already being developed and commercialized to optimize numerous manufacturing processes. In this paper, and from an Information Systems (IS) discipline viewpoint, we take stock of the different technological visions of the DT in manufacturing. We leverage this summary as a stepping stone for discussing the DT’s sociotechnical design implications by pointing how this approach is essential for the design of DT software that is specific to its environment and users and co-evolves with it. Furthermore, we present our vision for a DT-based Digital Platform that can support product design and life-cycle management while generating value through an ecosystem of twin-driven product-service systems. Lastly, we show how the Transformer 4.0 project will demonstrate the main principle of our vision by placing the DT of the power transformer with the dual role of virtual counterpart of the physical product and as the architectural framework for (i) managing and processing the historical data collected from the multiple working instances of DTs, and (ii) managing and integrating design information (models, specifications, design data, among others).