Personalized PSS Design Optimization based on Digital Twin and Extended Reality

Abstract

Modern manufacturing and production companies have transformed their business models in order to integrate Product-Service Systems (PSS). These changes in the modus operandi of companies facilitates the close collaboration of manufacturers and customer in the development of new product. Furthermore, the recent research works in the field of simulation indicate that the integration of Digital Twin, in various phases of the product lifecycle can be very beneficial, saving valuable time. More specifically, the simulation space provided by the Digital Twin can facilitate engineers in the process of information fusion derived from the virtual model of the product (i.e. conceptual model), knowledge gathered from the usage of the physical products as well as from information provided by the customers during the design of a new product. On the other hand, Extended Reality (XR) applications, including Virtual Reality (VR) can facilitate engineers in developing intuitive applications for capturing end-users’ knowledge through the interaction with the holograms displayed on their field of view, i.e. the physical space. Moreover, with the utilization of VR, engineers are capable of visualizing the simulation results from the Digital Twin and collaborate with their colleagues for improving new product designs. Towards this direction, the contribution of this research work is focused on the design and development of a framework for including customers in the design phase of new products under the mass personalization paradigm. The Digital Twin of the new product will accept as input information regarding the user-defined requirements, as well as data from previous similar design cases. Through the development of a VR application, engineers can visualize the simulation results and remotely collaborate during the design of new products. Finally, the development of an Augmented Reality (AR) application for the requirement elicitation from customers and the visualization of simulation results is provisioned.