Digital Twin-enhanced Approach for Supply Chain Disruption Management in Manufacturing Shop Floors

Abstract

The recent global pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities in manufacturing and amplified prevailing concerns towards the development of resilient systems from a supply chain (SC) perspective. Industries are often faced with supply and demand-related disruptions, leading to production lines unable to cope with material shortage and demand spikes, resulting in missed opportunities or wastage. As a prevailing technology in the manufacturing domain, Digital twins (DT) has the potential to support SC disruption management with real-time connectivity, simulation, and decision support functionalities. Thus, this paper proposes a DT system designed to mitigate SC-related disruptions, and facilitates end-to-end visibility, process streamlining, and solution generation to meet these challenges. A case study featuring an individualized production shop floor is further explored to validate the effectiveness of this DT system in disruption management within the FMCG domain. This explorative study hopes to align manufacturing resilience concepts with industrial practices to suit today's academic and industrial environment.