Virtual reconstruction-based digital twin shop floor: theoretical methodology, industrial software, and applications

Abstract

Digital Twin (DT) has become a key enabling technology for intelligent upgrading in discrete manufacturing shops. However, existing research primarily focuses on specific production applications, lacking consideration of the continuity across the overall production operation cycle. Such decentralized research leads to model fragmentation, data silos, and logical inconsistencies among multiple application scenarios such as pre-production planning, in-production execution, and post-production analysis, making effective integration and collaboration difficult. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a Seven-Element virtual reconstruction theory that enables consistent modeling of production elements, organizational forms, and execution logic. Based on this theory, a DT shop construction and operation framework centered on unified production logic is developed to support seamless integration and collaboration of various production applications. Additionally, operation methods for three core production applications of DT shop execution, simulation, and monitoring are systematically developed, establishing an overall technical system throughout the entire production cycle driven by a unified model. Corresponding DT industrial software systems are developed to support engineering implementation of the proposed methods. Validation through an actual shop floor demonstrates that the proposed method effectively achieves model unification and data fusion across multiple application scenarios, enhances both effectiveness and consistency of DT shop construction and operation.