Shop Floor Digital Twin in Smart Manufacturing: A Systematic Literature Review

The digital twin is currently recognized as a key technology allowing the digital representation of a real-world system. In smart manufacturing, the digital twin enables the management and analysis of physical and digital processes, products, and people in order to foster the sustainability of their lifecycles. Although past research addressed this topic, fragmented studies, a lack of a holistic view, and a lack of in-depth knowledge about digital twin concepts and structures are still evident in the domain of the shop floor digital twin. Manufacturing companies need an integrated reference framework that fits the main components of both physical and digital space. On the basis of a systematic literature review, this research aims to investigate the characteristics of the digital twin for shop floor purposes in the context of smart manufacturing. The “hexadimensional shop floor digital twin” (HexaSFDT) is proposed as a comprehensive framework that integrates all the main components and describes their relationships. In this way, manufacturing organizations can rely on an inclusive framework for supporting their journey in understanding the shop floor digital twin from a methodological and technological viewpoint. Furthermore, the research strengthens the reference literature by collecting and integrating relevant contributions in a unique framework.