Hybrid Simulation-Based Algorithm Tuning for Production Speed Management System as a Stand-Alone Online Digital Twin

One of the primary in-built components of smart, continuous manufacturing lines is the production speed management system (PSMS). In addition to being overly cautious, the decisions made in these systems may center on making local adjustments to the manufacturing process, indicating a major drawback of such systems that prevents them from acting as proper digital twins. This study delves into hybridizing the continuous and discrete event simulation, DOE, and V-graph methods to redefine PSMS's internal decision algorithms and procedures, giving it an aerial perspective of the line and turning it into a stand-alone online digital twin with decisions at a system level. The proposed approach is applied to a practical case from the food and beverage industry to validate its effectiveness. Numerical results demonstrated an intelligent, dynamic balancing of the production line, a substantial increment in productivity, and up to 37.7 % better resiliency against new failure and repair patterns.