Integrating Digital Twins into Small to Medium Sized Manufacturers: A Roadmap for Engineering Internships

Industry 4.0 includes implementations of digital twins (DT) that facilitates smart manufacturing enhancements. Unfortunately, integrating DT into small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMM) continues to be a challenge. To address this problem, the landscape of DT literature was analyzed, and the results were used to create a phased DT integration plan for SMM involving engineering student interns. This paper presents the results of a systematic literature review (SLR) and a roadmap for DT adoption in SMM. Data was extracted from the included literature and qualitatively analyzed to determine themes related to the benefits, challenges, use cases, and best practices of DT. The benefits of implementing DT were efficiency/optimization, quality/customization, maintenance management, safety monitoring, and operator training. The challenges extracted to overcome in implementing DT were connectivity, data analytics, automation, and instrumentation. Relevant DT use cases among the literature were at the levels of machine, work cell, production line, and manufacturing factory. The best practices for DT applications were related to information exchange, digital representation, and reference architecture. Ultimately the literature analysis provided the background to create an integration framework for DT in SMM who struggle to take advantage of Industry 4.0 technology. Engineering educators can implement the provided roadmap to satisfy ABET student outcomes while promoting DT adoption in SMM by involving engineering student interns.