Article
How to Set Up the Pillars of Digital Twins Technology in Our
Business: Entities, Challenges and Solutions
Islam Asem Salah Abusohyon
1,
* , Alberto Crupi
2
, Faezeh Bagheri
1
and Flavio Tonelli
1
Citation: Abusohyon, I.A.S.; Crupi,
A.; Bagheri, F.; Tonelli, F. How to Set
Up the Pillars of Digital Twins
Technology in Our Business: Entities,
Challenges and Solutions. Processes
2021, 9, 1307. https://doi.org/
10.3390/pr9081307
Academic Editors: Arkadiusz Gola
and Anna Trubetskaya
Received: 23 June 2021
Accepted: 25 July 2021
Published: 28 July 2021
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4.0/).
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Energetics, Management and Transportation, Polytechnic School,
University of Genoa, 16126 Genova, Italy; faezeh.baagheri@edu.unige.it (F.B.); flavio.tonelli@unige.it (F.T.)
2
Department of Management Engineering, LIUC University, 21053 Castellanza, Italy; alberto.crupi@gmail.com
* Correspondence: easem288@gmail.com
Abstract:
A digitalization of business process through utilizing Digital Twins is an approach that
assists companies to align themselves with changes of technology development, and accordingly,
improve their outcomes. To take full advantage of implementing Digital Twins, the importance of
the creative phase role as pillars of this technology on the performance of the other parts and overall
outcome should not be overlooked. This research addresses the lack of an integrated framework
for setting up the creative phase of digital twins. To design the proper framework, by relying on a
qualitative empirical method, an interview with persons who are experts in the Digital Twin area
was organized to collect the information about all obvious and hidden aspects of this phase and
manifest what kind of entities participate in this phase, what potential challenges and obstacles exist
and what solution is effective to overcome them. The structural feature of the proposed framework
continuously prepares the system for changes, aiming to adopt improvement within. The findings
of this study can be used as instruction by all companies that want to take the first steps toward
the digital representation of physical assets, or for those who deal with Digital Twin and want to
improve their systems’ interactions.
Keywords: digitalization; Digital Twin (DT); Internet of Things (IoT); data collection
1. Introduction
Digital Twin is the virtual representation of something that is physical, including not
only the structural parts but also the dynamics and behaviors of the system along the
lifecycle [
1
]. The interesting point about this presentation was that it included all the basic
components related to Digital Twin, consisting of real space, virtual space, the link for data
flow from real space to virtual space, the link for information flow from virtual space to
real space and virtual sub-spaces. The introduced concept could be implemented through
various ways into the processes. The most general one is the digital model, where there is
just the virtual representation and automated communication with the physical system is
absent. A deeper implementation of it could be attributed to the digital shadows, where
changes in the physical system can be applied in the virtual system, but it is not possible
vice-versa. At the highest level, implementing the entire concept of Digital Twins requires
bidirectional automated communication. The latter allows changes starting from both the
physical and the virtual system [1].
The main motivations that encourage the industrial sector to employ Digital Twins
technology could be referred to its striking benefits. Continuous improvement along
the product lifecycle phases, monitoring the physical system for the sake of preventing
problems [
1
], simulating the physical system and tracking the system performance under
the influence of changing a series of parameters in the digital system before adopting the
in the physical system, predicting about problems or future possible scenarios, analyzing
the operation and manufacturing process in real-time [
2
] and resolving several problems
Processes 2021, 9, 1307. https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9081307 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/processes
