Digital Twins have been steadily gaining ground in research and practice and have been recently proposed to support modularity. Still, Digital twins are usually developed as siloed solutions, without the capability to collaborate with the latter requiring a paradigm shift from proprietary to standardized Digital Twins. Moreover, to support design and reconfiguration of modules and production lines (depending on the scope), and enable flexible rearrangement of production by easily introducing, removing, altering, or replacing parts, modules, or process steps, accordingly, MODAPTO Project’s conceptual approach focuses on two technological pillars:
- Pillar 1: “Interoperability Framework & standards” and “Distributed Control via DTs”
- Pillar 2: “Modularity Support Toolkit”, “Modularity Support Services” and “Production Knowledge Base”
The two technological pillars consist of five main entities: Interoperability Framework & Standards and Distributed Control via DTs for Pillar 1, Modular Production Toolkit, Production Knowledge Base and Modularity Support Services for Pillar 2. Moreover, Modularity Support consists of Service Operation, Event Management and Collective Intelligence to complete the architectural components.