Abstract The rapid development new generation of information technologies facilitate the emergence of cyber-physical production system (CPPS) which could pave a way to exploring new smart manufacturing solutions. Digital twin (DT) is the technical core for establishing CPPS in the context of industry 4.0. Developing an easy-to-deploy and simple-to-use DT-based CPPS is a critical research gap. In this paper, a systemic framework is proposed to provide guidelines for rapid system configuration and easy runtime of DT-based CPPS by integrating CPS, DT modeling technologies, event-driven distributed cooperation mechanisms, and web technologies. The concept of CPS node (CPSN) for manufacturing resources is established by integrating semantic information model, 3D geometric model and function modules. Various CPSNs are orchestrated as an autonomous CPPS using dynamic resource registration and binding technologies. To achieve easy runtime of DT-based CPPS, event-driven distributed cooperation among CPSNs and web-based remote control of CPPS are proposed respectively. Finally, to verify the feasibility of the proposed framework, a prototype of DT-based CPPS is implemented, based on which an exemplary case is conducted.