Digital Twin design at the material flow level

Mass customization in industry is perceived as contemporary challenge for many organizations. Requirements for quality, functionality and uniqueness of products grow at a disproportionate pace and at the same time, price remains to be the the customer's main attribute for purchasing the product. One of the tools for reducing the cost is precisely the Digital Twin concept, which besides is the essence of the so-called Simulation 4.0. This concept focuses on the creation of digital prototypes of products and production processes at any of its different instances including the material flow or plant level. Up until recently, Simulation had been known for being static in nature and using pre-determined or generated values, i.e.: "dead" simulations without dynamics or interactions with real data. However, Simulation 4.0 is built on the principles of the Digital Twin technology, which is flexible, time-changing, and capable of interaction with the real world. Simulation 4.0 uses many tools, such as IoT, Big Data, Cloud Computing technologies used to process live data. Live data are afterward sent to local or global databases. This paper elaborates on all these topics and presents a real-life example for the online tracking of products and parts in a production environment, as a clear manifestation of digital twin design at the material flow level.