Digital Twin models in industrial operations: State-of-the-art and future research directions

A Digital Twin is a virtual representation of a physical product, asset, process, system, or service that allows us to understand, predict, and optimise their performance for better business outcomes. Recently, the use of Digital Twin in industrial operations has attracted the attention of many scholars and industrial sectors. Despite this, there is still a need to identify its value in industrial operations mainly in production, predictive maintenance, and after-sales services. Similarly, the implementation of a Digital Twin still faces many challenges. In response, a systematic literature review and analysis of 41 papers published between 2016 and 11 July 2020 have been carried out to examine recently published works in the field. Future research directions in the area are also highlighted. The result reveals that, regardless of the challenges, the role of Digital Twin in the advancement of industrial operations, especially production and predictive maintenance is highly significant. However, its role in after-sales services remains limited. Insights are offered for research scholars, companies, and practitioners to understand the current state-of-the-art and challenges, and to indicate future research possibilities in the field.