Guidance on a Digital Factory Twin: Proposal for a Reference Architecture

The digital twin in manufacturing, also called digital factory twin (DFT), is not only a recent technology but also a polymorphic concept which generates a profusion of state-of-the-art work from industry and research without real coherence. The work relates to very different realities including various definitions, shapes, models and applications. A wide variety of architectures are proposed and there is a significant lack of information on how to deploy a digital twin efficiently and how to define an appropriate architecture. The DFT is often implemented use-case-driven and in various ways concerning IT architectures. The paper proposes a reference architecture based on enterprise architecture modelling language ArchiMate and TOGAF principles, which allows to model business architectures and IT architectures. We make use of that and model a DFT business architecture based on the lifecycle of a factory and a DFT IT architecture based on IT applications and IT functions.