Utilization of a Digital Twin for an Assembly Line : Exploring the Various Applications of a Digital Twin and the Data and Tools Needed

Abstract: A surge in the battery industry and market was observed a few years back. Currently, the leaders in producing batteries are Asian countries. Nevertheless, countries are attempting to penetrate the battery market and become stable manufacturing competitors of batteries, one of which is Sweden. One of the driving factors of the surge in battery usage is sustainability awareness. Industry 4.0 and digitalization have become popular within industries and firms with the years, where new concepts have emerged; one of these is the digital twin. There are different definitions of what a digital twin is. This study defines a digital twin as a virtual representation of a physical object that automatically transfers real-time data; if one of the states is altered, the other state should change. Therefore, the study aims to investigate the different applications of a digital twin, specifically in a battery manufacturing organization. Furthermore, it also gives an overview of the digital twin concept and its applications, where benefits, challenges, technologies, and data are investigated. In order to narrow and delimit the research, the primary focus has been on the assembly line, where both a manufacturing and sustainability perspective have been investigated. The research question has thus been “How could a digital twin be utilized in a fast-growing battery manufacturing firm?". With an inductive approach, both primary and secondary data have been collected through interviews and literature studies. Methods utilized for the research have been conducting, transcribing and coding the interviews. The results indicated that the technology is considered new and there are many different applications of a digital twin. Therefore, a firm needs to benchmark with other organization and lock down the digital twin's purpose before developing it. Applications recognized were visualization, measuring manufacturing KPIs as well as recording material for the material declaration of the products, to calculate the carbon footprint, and measuring the energy consumption of the machines. Depending on the purpose and application of the digital twin, the firm will know what data needs to be collected and what software is most suitable.