Using a digital twin and smart services to enable automatic generation of context-sensitive instructions

The increasing diversity and shorter life cycles of technical products pose significant challenges for manufacturing companies, particularly in the context of providing specific and context-sensitive instructions to employees, especially in domains including maintenance, assembly and disassembly. This challenge holds significant importance in the context of the current skilled worker shortage. This paper proposes a solution by leveraging digital twin technology and smart services to automate the generation of context-sensitive instructions. The research outlines the development of a smart service system that uses real-time data from digital twins to create and deliver adaptive and user-specific instructions via smart devices. A conceptual design of the smart service system, a prototypical implementation using a rolling mill maintenance task, and the verification and validation of the developed system were carried out. The results indicate that the proposed system effectively addresses the challenges of traditional manual instructions, enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and user satisfaction. • Leverages digital twin technology for context-sensitive manufacturing instructions. • Smart services generate adaptive, user-specific guidance in real-time. • Validated system improves efficiency, accuracy, and user satisfaction in industrial applications. • Demonstrates reduced errors and faster task execution in a rolling mill maintenance case study.