Process Mining as Catalyst of Digital Twins for Production Systems: Challenges and Research Opportunities

The advantages in terms of productivity from recent investments toward higher automation come along with an escalating complexity in manufacturing systems. This prompts for leveraging digital support assistants, notably digital twins, for production planning and control tasks. Process mining has emerged as a valuable tool in the realm of digital twinning as it proved its efficacy in tasks such as model generation, trace profiling, and performance evaluation. However, several challenges persist in different methodological and application areas, presenting valuable opportunities for both academia and industry. This work aims to shed light on a selection of topics uniting the fields of process mining and digital twins for manufacturing systems, with a reflection on current challenges and research opportunities that can be seized in the near future.