Literature Review to Digital Twin of a Process Plant

The current state of the art of the digital twin is portrayed in this chapter with a focus on the process plant. For this purpose, an exhaustive sample of recent scientific literature was analyzed, and different approaches are explained. While it should be noted that a variety of definitions of the digital twin exist, several definitions of the digital twin are compared here. A digital twin is understood as a digital representation of an active, unique product or unique product-service-system with its selected characteristics during certain lifecycle phases. Countless publications document comprehensive approaches, advanced methods, and convincing practical solutions on how products, processes, and services can be optimized, and new ones created by using a digital twin. A taxonomy of the digital twin is elaborated. The multitude of practical applications of the digital twin can be structured according to the digital twin paradigm: functions, components, lifecycle, architecture, and context. An overview of the main application fields of the digital twin in different industrial domains is also drawn. The published applications of digital twins in the process industry are elaborated. The applications in the process industry are explored for use cases such as the design of digital twins, the process synthesis, the modernization of existing plants, incident studies, the planning of maintenance measures, the virtual monitoring of plant operation, and the training of operating and maintenance personnel. In the discussion section, the match is presented on how the digital twin provides the suitable approaches to business challenges a modern company in the process industry is faced with by timely sharing information about the products, processes, and resources across the lifecycle. The benefits of the digital twin are highlighted such as acceleration of business tasks and processes such as analytics, decision support, forecast/prediction, and recommendations. The distinction between the data-based and the system-based approach for the generation of the digital twin is elaborated. The gap in coherence between the real and the digital twin in a brownfield environment was detected. Finally, based on the digital twin characteristics, an approach for the generation and update of the digital twin of a process plant is drafted which should be offered as a commercial service.