International Journal of Production Research

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Knowledge-driven digital twin manufacturing cell

towards intelligent manufacturing

Guanghui Zhou, Chao Zhang, Zhi Li, Kai Ding & Chuang Wang

To cite this article: Guanghui Zhou, Chao Zhang, Zhi Li, Kai Ding & Chuang Wang (2020)
Knowledge-driven digital twin manufacturing cell towards intelligent manufacturing, International
Journal of Production Research, 58:4, 1034-1051, DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2019.1607978

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2019.1607978

Published online: 25 Apr 2019.

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International Journal of Production Research, 2020
Vol. 58, No. 4, 1034–1051, https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2019.1607978

Knowledge-driven digital twin manufacturing cell towards intelligent manufacturing

Guanghui Zhoua,b∗ , Chao Zhanga , Zhi Lia , Kai Dingc∗∗ and Chuang Wangd
a Schoolof Mechanical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, People’s Republic of China b State Key Laboratory for
Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China; c Department of Industrial and
Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong; d Institute of Internet of Things and IT-based
Industrialization, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China
(Received 23 January 2019; accepted 8 April 2019)

Rapid advances in new generation information technologies, such as big data analytics, internet of things (IoT), edge com-
puting and artificial intelligence, have nowadays driven traditional manufacturing all the way to intelligent manufacturing.
Intelligent manufacturing is characterised by autonomy and self-optimisation, which proposes new demands such as learning
and cognitive capacities for manufacturing cell, known as the minimum implementation unit for intelligent manufacturing.
Consequently, this paper proposes a general framework for knowledge-driven digital twin manufacturing cell (KDTMC)
towards intelligent manufacturing, which could support autonomous manufacturing by an intelligent perceiving, simulating,
understanding, predicting, optimising and controlling strategy. Three key enabling technologies including digital twin model,
dynamic knowledge bases and knowledge-based intelligent skills for supporting the above strategy are analysed, which equip
KDTMC with the capacities of self-thinking, self-decision-making, self-execution and self-improving. The implementing
methods of KDTMC are also introduced by a thus constructed test bed. Three application examples about intelligent pro-
cess planning, intelligent production scheduling and production process analysis and dynamic regulation demonstrate the
feasibility of KDTMC, which provides a practical insight into the intelligent manufacturing paradigm.
Keywords: Intelligent manufacturing; digital twin; dynamic knowledge bases; knowledge-based intelligent skills; digital
twin manufacturing cell

1. Introduction
The fusion of current manufacturing technologies with new generation information technologies is guiding another paradigm
shift in manufacturing, generally known as the fourth industrial revolution (Haag and Anderl 2018). Countries around the
world are actively engaging this revolution by making national manufacturing development strategies such as strategic
initiative Industrie 4.0 in Germany, Made in China 2025, and Advanced Manufacturing Partnership in United States, among
which intelligent manufacturing is regarded as the key to establish the competitive advantages for the manufacturing industry
of major countries (Zhou et al. 2018; Zhong et al. 2017).
Intelligent manufacturing is characterised by autonomy and self-optimisation, which proposes new demands such as
learning and cognitive capacities for manufacturing cell, known as the minimum implementation unit for intelligent man-
ufacturing. The concept of manufacturing cell originates from cellular manufacturing (Ostrosi and Fougères 2018). It aims
to form short, focused paths in concentrated physical space to reduce cost and keep flexibility by bringing together machine
tools involved in a processing sequence of a product natural flow and grouping them close to one another, distinct from other
groups. Currently, many conceptual frameworks, such as cloud manufacturing (Adamson et al. 2017) and smart manufactur-
ing (Kusiak 2018), have been developed to provide an insight into the intelligent manufacturing paradigm. At the same time,
some implementing methods of intelligent manufacturing, such as production data collection and analysis (Ding and Jiang
2018), RFID-based production monitoring (Guo et al. 2015) and digital twin based cyber physical fusion (Ding et al. 2019),
have been proposed. The above pioneering works push forward both the understanding and implementation of intelligent
manufacturing. Nevertheless, relatively little heed has been paid to the construction of an autonomous manufacturing cell
that can operate separate from human control in most situations, which is also crucial for manufacturing enterprises to put
intelligent manufacturing into practice.

*Corresponding author. Email: ghzhou@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

**Present address: Department of Manufacturing Automation, Chang’an University, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China.

© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

 International Journal of Production Research 1035

To cover the above research gap, this paper introduces a knowledge-driven digital twin manufacturing cell (KDTMC),
which aims to maximise the product quality and throughput, while keeping flexibility and reducing cost, by an intelligent
perceiving, simulating, understanding, predicting, optimising and controlling strategy. Three key enabling technologies
including digital twin model, dynamic knowledge bases and knowledge-based intelligent skills for supporting the above
strategy are also developed, which equip KDTMC with the capacities of self-thinking, self-decision-making, self-execution
and self-improving. A test bed of KDTMC is constructed to reveal the implementing methods and manufacturing execution
mechanisms of KDTMC. Three application examples about intelligent process planning, intelligent production scheduling
and production process analysis and dynamic regulation demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed KDTMC.
The reminder of the paper is organised as follows. In Section 2, we introduce the research background behind this
paper. Section 3 explores the characteristics, definition and framework of KDTMC. Section 3 presents three key enabling
technologies of KDTMC. A test bed of KDTMC is constructed and then three application examples are analysed in Section
5. The conclusion and future work are found in Section 6.

2. Background
This section first presents the research background behind the paper, including three basic paradigms of manufacturing
systems, digital twin in manufacturing and manufacturing knowledge management. Then, the research gap and motivation
are summarised.

2.1. Three basic paradigms of manufacturing systems

The fusion of current manufacturing technologies with new generation information technologies has hastened the emergence
of various manufacturing systems. According to Zhou et al. (2018), the evolution of manufacturing systems could be divided
into three stages in terms of the degree of intelligence, namely traditional manufacturing, smart manufacturing and intelligent
manufacturing (as shown in Figure 1).
Traditional manufacturing system consists of humans and physical systems, where physical systems could replace
humans by taking over the majority of manufacturing tasks. However, humans still need to complete considerable tasks

Figure 1. Evolution of manufacturing systems.

1036 G. Zhou et al.

such as information perceiving, analysis, decision-making, operation and control, which are time consuming and of high
labour intensity.
Smart manufacturing system (Tao, Qi, et al. 2018; Qi et al. 2018) is mainly based on the internet technology. It is
different from the traditional manufacturing system by integrating cyber systems between humans and physical systems.
Cyber systems could complete part of brainwork of humans by migrating humans’ perceiving, analysis and decision-making
functions. Taking advantages of smart devices that can operate to some extent interactively and autonomously, the manu-
facturing efficiency, quality and stability of the system are markedly improved. The key issue in smart manufacturing is
the convergence of physical systems and cyber systems, where digital twin, a reference model to realise the interoperation
and fusion between physical space and virtual space of manufacturing (Liu et al. 2018), is nowadays regarded as the most
effective solution.
Intelligence is the measurement of one’s capacity to become smarter through learning. In this context, intelligent
manufacturing system (Chen, Zhang, and Geraedts 2018) represents an in-depth integration of new-generation artificial
intelligence technology and advanced manufacturing to obtain powerful learning and cognitive capacities. It is more intel-
ligent than smart manufacturing system by integrating knowledge-based intelligent skills powered by artificial intelligence,
such as knowledge-driven decision-making (Zhang et al. 2017) and knowledge-based intelligent process planning (Zhu
et al. 2018). These skills equip intelligent manufacturing system with increasingly powerful cognitive and learning capaci-
ties, which could, therefore, shift the boundary between humans and machines dramatically. In this paradigm, humans will
be released from the boring manual labour and a considerable amount of hard brainwork, and thus to be more engaged in
creative works. The key issue in intelligent manufacturing is the development and application of knowledge-based intelli-
gent skills. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce a new kind of manufacturing cell integrating such skills to fit the intelligent
manufacturing paradigm.

2.2. Digital twin in manufacturing

Digital twin concept was first proposed by Grieves in 2003 (Grieves and Vickers 2017), and was initially defined as a
3D model that contains information about the physical product, digital product and connections between them. With the
increasing applications of digital twin in product lifecycle, its concept becomes more mature and specific. The general
acceptable definition of digital twin was developed by NASA (Glaessgen and Stargel 2012): an integrated multi-physics,
multiscale, probabilistic simulation of an as-built product, system or process which can mirror the life of its corresponding
twin using available physical models, history data, real-time data, etc. In this context, digital twin could bridge the gap
between physical world and cyber world, which has been one of the most promising technology for the construction of
cyber-physical systems in manufacturing and received increasing attentions recently.
Bohlin et al. (2017) indicated the data flow and communications between cyber assembly cell and physical assembly
cell to support digital twin for geometry assurance. Iglesias et al. (2017) introduced three complimentary applications for
enhancing JET divertor operations by a digital twin-based approach. Knapp et al. (2017) utilised a transient and three-
dimensional model to establish the key building blocks for a digital twin of additive manufacturing. Schleich et al. (2017)
proposed a comprehensive reference model based on the concept of skin model shapes. Schleich et al. (2014), which could
serve as the digital twin of physical products in design and manufacturing. Haag and Anderl (2018) developed a cyber-
physical bending beam test bench to prove the concept of digital twin. Qi and Tao (2018) introduced a serial digital twin-
driven frameworks for smart manufacturing, including digital twin-driven design (Tao, Sui, et al. 2018), manufacturing (Tao
and Zhang 2017), service (Tao, Cheng, et al. 2018) and prognostics and health management (Tao, Zhang, et al. 2018).
The above approaches contribute to the convergence of physical systems and cyber systems by establishing a general
framework of or developing modelling technologies for digital twin in smart manufacturing paradigm (Leng et al. 2018).
However, without the support of knowledge, these contributions still could not support the construction of an autonomous
manufacturing cell towards intelligent manufacturing.

2.3. Manufacturing knowledge management

Effective knowledge management has been an important means of achieving a competitive advantage in product quality
and time taken to introduce new products to the market for manufacturing enterprises. It aims to appropriately capture
and organise knowledge, thus supporting the effective reuse of knowledge for better informing engineers, software or even
machine tools to develop good judgements to make decisions.
The recent European Union FLEXINET project (Palmer et al. 2018) explores an interoperable manufacturing knowledge
system for decision-making support based on a comprehensive manufacturing reference ontology. Mohammed et al. (2018)
explored a general and flexible architecture for implementing manufacturing execution system functions in knowledge-
driven manufacturing systems. Quintana-Amate et al. (2017) presented a new knowledge sourcing framework for aerospace
 International Journal of Production Research 1037

industries to capture, retain and reuse engineering knowledge by integrating software and expertise, which could automate
repetitive tasks and speed up the engineering design process. Feng et al. (2017) developed a knowledge management strategy
to address the lack of mechanisms for integrating, sharing and updating domain-specific knowledge in smart manufacturing.
Ye et al. (2018) proposed a knowledge-based approach to help the computer numerical controller of a machine tool make
process planning automatically based on workpiece design.
The above works indicate that effective knowledge management and reuse could help humans, software or even machine
tools better understand the situation of problems, and then develop good judgements to make appropriate decisions. This
provides inspiration for the support of autonomous operations of manufacturing cell.

2.4. Research gap and motivation

As mentioned above, it is significant to introduce a new kind of autonomous manufacturing cell that could serve as the
minimum implementation unit for intelligent manufacturing. However, the current approaches still focus on the development
of a general framework or modelling technology for digital twin towards smart manufacturing, which ignores the importance
of knowledge for supporting autonomous operations of digital twin. That is, the lack of knowledge support among these
approaches prevents them from applying in the construction of an autonomous manufacturing cell. With these observations,
based on our previous works about knowledge capture (Zhang, Zhou, Bai, et al. 2018; Zhang, Zhou, Lu, et al. 2018),
knowledge representation (Zhang, Zhou, and Lu 2017) and knowledge-based intelligent skills (Zhang et al. 2017; Zhang
and Zhou 2019), this paper introduces a knowledge-driven framework for KDTMC towards intelligent manufacturing,
while analysing its key enabling technologies including digital twin model, dynamic knowledge bases and knowledge-
based intelligent skills. The feasibility of the proposed KDTMC is demonstrated through a thus constructed test bed and its
three application examples.

3. Framework of KDTMC
3.1. Characteristics of manufacturing cell in intelligent manufacturing
There is a popular belief that the key aspect of intelligent manufacturing system is its learning and cognitive capacities (Zhou
et al. 2018; Zhong et al. 2017; Tao, Qi, et al. 2018) enabled by knowledge-based intelligent skills, which bring new character-
istics for manufacturing cell in intelligent manufacturing. This section explores these new characteristics of manufacturing
cell by analogy analysis with a human-oriented manufacturing system (HMS), as illustrated in Figure 2. A typical HMS
is characterised by self-thinking, self-decision-making, self-execution and self-improving (Figure 2(a)), which could finish
manufacturing tasks by the following steps. Firstly, human could perceive the manufacturing context by eyes, ears or hands.

Figure 2. Illustration of the characteristics of manufacturing cell by analogy analysis with HMS. Characteristics of (a) HMS and (b)
manufacturing cell in intelligent manufacturing.
1038 G. Zhou et al.

Secondly, he could analyse or predict the manufacturing status based on the manufacturing context, and then find the current
manufacturing problems. Thirdly, he could make decisions about the encountered problems by using internal or external
knowledge. Finally, he could control machines according to his decisions and realise self-execution of HMS. Besides, he
could improve himself by continuous knowledge accumulation during manufacturing process. Manufacturing cell in intel-
ligent manufacturing is deemed as the perfect substitution of HMS, which should be autonomous – operating separate from
human control in most situations with the similar characteristics to HMS, including self-thinking, self-decision-making,
self-execution and self-improving (Figure 2(b)). That is, manufacturing cell should perform autonomous operations by first
perceiving, then understanding, then optimising, and finally controlling the performance of manufacturing process. To this
end, we introduce a KDTMC towards intelligent manufacturing, which will be detailed in the next section.

3.2. Definition and framework of KDTMC

Based on the above analyses, we define KDTMC as follows.
Definition 1: KDTMC is defined as a minimum implementation unit of intelligent manufacturing that corresponds to the
four-dimensional limited intelligent manufacturing space of a production cell in cellular manufacturing, including physical
space, digital space, knowledge space and social space (Ding, Jiang, and Su 2018). The fusion of these four spaces could
equip KDTMC with powerful cognitive and learning capacities like self-thinking, self-decision-making, self-execution and
self-improving to maximise quality and throughput, while keeping flexibility and reducing cost. Here:
(1) Physical space is a container of physical manufacturing resources like work-in-process (WIP), smart manufacturing
devices, sensors and smart gateways, where the status of WIP and smart manufacturing devices is perceived by
sensors. The perceived data and real-time control orders are published and subscribed by smart gateways.
(2) Digital space is a container of virtual manufacturing resources like virtual WIP, virtual manufacturing devices and
virtual manufacturing process. Digital space could first simulate, then understand, then predict and finally optimise
the manufacturing performance based on the real-time data and historical knowledge, while publishing orders to
control physical manufacturing resources.
(3) Knowledge space integrates dynamic knowledge bases and knowledge-based intelligent skills. It supports intelli-
gent decision-making in physical space, digital space and social space by a self-thinking (intelligent knowledge
navigation), self-decision-making (intelligent knowledge application) and self-improving (intelligent knowledge
accumulation) strategy.
(4) Social space bridges the gap between KDTMC and customers, which could cognize and analyse customer require-
ments and publish production orders to KDTMC by service systems such as customer relation management (CRM)
and enterprise resource planning (ERP). Nowadays, these systems are mature and we do not discuss in this paper.
According to the definition, we propose a knowledge-driven framework for KDTMC (as shown in Figure 3), which is
enabled by three key technologies including digital twin model, dynamic knowledge bases and knowledge-based intelligent
skills.
Specifically, digital twin model makes the physical space and digital space converge, which acts as the body of KDTMC
to realise self-execution. It could perceive and simulate the production process based on the real-time data, while understand-
ing, predicting and optimising the manufacturing performance using historical knowledge. Dynamic knowledge bases are
the brain of KDTMC, which connect the physical space, digital space and social space, and realise self-thinking and self-
improving by automatic knowledge navigation and continuous knowledge accumulation, respectively. Knowledge-based
intelligent skills equip KDTMC with various skills to deal with different manufacturing problems and produce reliable deci-
sions. Benefited by the above technologies, KDTMC could facilitate the construction of intelligent manufacturing system
by providing a minimum implementation unit with the capacities of self-thinking, self-decision-making, self-execution and
self-improving.

4. Key enabling technologies of KDTMC

4.1. Digital twin model
Digital twin, being a reference model for the interoperation and fusion of physical space and virtual space of manufacturing,
could be a key enabling technology for the construction of KDTMC by bridging the gap between physical space and
digital space of KDTMC. Digital twin modelling of manufacturing cell serves as the basis for KDTMC, which connects the
digital space and physical space by an iterative cycle of communication, computation and control. As shown in the bottom
of Figure 3, except for the traditional production abilities, the physical space could also perceive the manufacturing data
related to human, devices, materials, environment, etc., via a sensor network. Here, the sensor network is used to realise the
 International Journal of Production Research 1039

Figure 3. Architecture of KDTMC.

interconnection and interaction of manufacturing cell by wired or wireless sensors deployed on manufacturing resources.
As shown in the top of Figure 3, the digital space could simulate and visualise the manufacturing process based on the
perceived manufacturing data. Then, it could understand, predict or optimise the performance of manufacturing process
through the intelligent analysis and decision-making process enabled by dynamic knowledge bases and knowledge-based
intelligent skills. Finally, it produces real-time orders to control the physical manufacturing process (Figure 4).
We take an industrial robot as an example to illustrate the digital twin modelling process of KDTMC. The input infor-
mation of digital twin modelling of the robot is as shown in Table 1, which includes maximum range of action, maximum
speed, maximum moving radius, weight capacity, repeated positioning accuracy, weight and motor of the robot.
According to the input information, the multidisciplinary simulation model (Figure 5(b)) of the robot (Figure 5(a)) is
constructed using Modelica language. This simulation model consists of four parts, namely path planning module, control
bus, electric module and mechanical module. Here, path planning module produces reference motion parameters (angle,
angular velocity and angular acceleration) for each of six axes of the robot according to the real-time point to point location
of the robot perceived by position sensors. The control bus transmits these parameters to the electric module, with which the
electric module could produce torque, position and speed of joint motor to control the motions of mechanical module. The
motions are visualised by a virtual 3D model of the robot instantly (Figure 5(c)). The above-simulating results could be used
to understand and then predict the operation status of the robot (Figure 5(d)) according to its real-time physical parameters,
such as rms current of each joint motor and joint driving torque of robot.

4.2. Dynamic knowledge bases

Dynamic knowledge bases could equip KDTMC with the capacities of self-improving and self-thinking by continuous
knowledge accumulation and automatic knowledge navigation, respectively. Figure 6 illustrates a reference model for the
construction of dynamic knowledge bases, which could automatically accumulate and search knowledge by the following
steps. Firstly, raw data like digital twin data, information generated by service systems and human knowledge go through a
data clearing and pre-processing model to remove the useless data. Then, the processed data could be used as the training set
to update or generate knowledge through machine learning. Here, knowledge includes learned models, rules, cases, and so
on. Finally, the generated knowledge is evaluated and corrected, and the qualified knowledge is stored in dynamic knowledge
bases. Dynamic knowledge bases also support automatic knowledge navigation triggered by the manufacturing context
1040 G. Zhou et al.

Figure 4. Reference model for digital twin modelling of manufacturing cell.

Table 1. Input information of digital twin modelling of the robot.

6-axis articulated robot Maximum range of action Axis #1 ± 160°
Axis #2 − 150°/55°
Axis #3 35°/245°
Axis #4 ± 180°
Axis #5 ± 120°
Axis #6 ± 360°
Maximum speed Axis #1 170°/s
Axis #2 165°/s
Axis #3 170°/s
Axis #4 360°/s
Axis #5 360°/s
Axis #6 600°/s
Maximum moving radius 1722 mm
Weight capacity 20 kg
Repeated positioning accuracy ± 0.08 mm
Weight 220 kg
Motor TSM1308N8225E726

perceived by sensor network. The matched knowledge could be used to facilitate the processes like self-decision-making
and manufacturing performance understanding, prediction and optimisation.
Figure 7 shows an example of knowledge accumulation. As shown in Figure 7(a), raw data is first imported into the
data warehouse using an Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) tool (Homayouni 2018), where raw data is cleared according to the
data validity judgement, deduplication and ranking. Secondly, the processed data is transformed into an available format,
namely cube, through SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) component; thirdly, the cube is used as a training set for new
 International Journal of Production Research 1041

Figure 5. Illustration example of digital twin modelling of a robot. (a) Physical model, (b) multidisciplinary simulation model based on
Modelica, (c) virtual model for visualisation, and (d) real-time analysis and prediction of multi-physics of the robot.

Figure 6. Reference model for the construction of dynamic knowledge bases.

knowledge (rules) generation through a frequent pattern (FP) tree and a FP growth algorithm (Heng et al. 2017), where
OLAP4J (an open Java API for on-line analytical processing (OLAP)) is used as an interface to import the cube into the
algorithm. Figure 7(b) illustrates an example of generating new rules from the real-world machining data. The learned rules
could be easily reused for process planning and cutting tool selection, which will be detailed in the next section.
1042 G. Zhou et al.

Figure 7. Automatic knowledge accumulation example. (a) Method flow and (b) example flow.

4.3. Knowledge-based intelligent skills

Knowledge-based intelligent skills refer to the ability of appropriate applications of knowledge in dynamic knowledge
bases according to the real-time manufacturing context, which could support the intelligent analysis and self-decision-
making process. That is, these intelligent skills solve manufacturing problems or understand, predict and optimise the
real-time performance of manufacturing cell by the learned models, rules or cases. As shown in Figure 8, knowledge-
based intelligent skills could be carried out through the following four steps. Firstly, manufacturing context, such as
machining status of WIP and operating status of machine tools, is extracted from real-time manufacturing data after data
clearing and pre-processing, where ETL and SSAS could be used for this purpose. Secondly, knowledge navigation is
performed to find the appropriate knowledge according to the extracted manufacturing context, where knowledge navi-
gation approach proposed by Zhang, Zhou, Bai, et al. (2018) could be employed here. Thirdly, the matched knowledge
could be used to produce decisions about manufacturing problems or understand, predict and optimise the real-time per-
formance of manufacturing cell, where the current research conducted by Quintana-Amate et al. (2017) may provide a
reference in this subject. Lastly, uncertainties (Zhang et al. 2017) caused by the incomplete or not completely matched
knowledge are evaluated, and validated decisions could be further adopted to control physical manufacturing cell, where
uncertainty analysis and experience feedback model proposed by Jabrouni et al. (2013) might be used for uncertainty
evaluation.
Figure 9 illustrates an example of using the rules learned in Section 4.2 for cutting tool and cutting parameters deci-
sions. Here, the rules could be triggered by a specific machining task, usually a machining feature represented by its basic
information about feature type, material and parameters. Then, the cutting tool could be determined based on the matched
rule and digital twin data, and the cutting parameters could also be recommended according to the historical machining
knowledge. Here, digital twin data indicates the real-time status of cutting tools tracked by RFID, which is also crucial for
 International Journal of Production Research 1043

Figure 8. A reference model for the application of knowledge-based intelligent skills.

Figure 9. Example of cutting tool and cutting parameters decisions.

cutting tool selection as only the unoccupied cutting tools could be selected. In this example, however, the basic information
of the machining feature has to be inputted by humans, which is not very convenient and deviated from self-decision-
making. To this end, the case study section will extend this approach and develop a more intelligent approach to support
self-decision-making in KDTMC.

5. Case study
This section first establishes a test bed of KDTMC based on the intelligent manufacturing platform of Xi’an Jiaotong Uni-
versity. Then, its potential applications are illustrated through three examples about intelligent process planning, intelligent
production scheduling and production process analysis and dynamic regulation. Finally, the contributions and limitations of
this paper are discussed.
1044 G. Zhou et al.

5.1. Test bed of KDTMC

5.1.1. Construction of KDTMC
Figure 10 illustrates five main building blocks of KDTMC, which include the physical manufacturing cell in physi-
cal space, virtual manufacturing cell in digital space, service systems in social space, dynamic knowledge bases and
knowledge-based intelligent skills in knowledge space. Physical manufacturing cell consists of three machine tools, two
6-axis articulated robots, two buffers, a warehouse, an automatic guided vehicle (AGV) and a kanban system. The lay-
out of the above manufacturing devices is as shown in the left bottom of Figure 10. RFID are used here to track
the status of cutting tools and WIP. Sensors like temperature sensors, Hall sensors, liquid level sensors and multispeed
revolvers are deployed on the machine tools and robots, which constitutes a sensor network to perceive the position, lin-
ear displacement, angular displacement, velocity, pressure and temperature of these devices. The virtual manufacturing
cell is a complete mapping of physical manufacturing cell, which could conduct simulations of manufacturing process
in advance or real-time, based on the production orders provided by service systems or real-time data perceived by
the sensor network. Manufacturing process simulations together with the knowledge-based intelligent skills could help
KDTMC understand, predict and optimise the manufacturing performance, which could, therefore, maximise the product
quality and throughput, while keeping flexibility and reducing production time and cost. Here, we construct an over-
all digital twin model of KDTMC using Tecnomatix Plant Simulation (as shown in Figure 13(a)), and specific digital
twin models of each manufacturing device using MWorks (as shown in Figure 5). In addition, to perceive and con-
trol the manufacturing process, a publish-subscribe architecture (Roffia et al. 2016) based on MQTT (message queuing
telemetry transport) messaging protocol is utilised. MQTT broker included in the architecture first collects the real-
time data or control orders published on certain topics and then distributes them to interested clients who subscribe to
these topics.

Figure 10. Test bed of KDTMC.

 International Journal of Production Research 1045

Figure 11. Manufacturing execution mechanisms of the test bed.

5.1.2. Manufacturing execution mechanisms of KDTMC

The production environment of impellers is used here to explore the manufacturing execution mechanisms of KDTMC, as
shown in Figure 11. Firstly, service systems publish production orders about raw materials, process requirements, date of the
delivery, supplemental materials, etc. Secondly, production preparation process is performed by the following three steps:
(1) intelligent process planning using historical knowledge in dynamic knowledge bases; (2) production simulation and
optimisation performed by the virtual manufacturing cell; (3) producing optimal production scheduling plans, such as the
machine tool scheduling plan, cutting tool scheduling plan and AGV’s path plan, based on the simulation results and real-
time status of manufacturing devices. Thirdly, the production process is carried out based on the output of the preparation
process. This process is continuously simulated and visualised by the virtual manufacturing cell based on the real-time data
perceived by the sensor network, where knowledge-based intelligent skills are used to understand, predict or optimise the
performance of the production process. Finally, finished products are evaluated and the qualified ones could be sent to the
warehouse.

5.2. Potential applications of KDMTC

This section explores the potential applications of KDTMC through three examples about intelligent process planning,
intelligent production scheduling and production process analysis and dynamic regulation.

5.2.1. Intelligent process planning

This section introduces an example about intelligent decision-making for the process planning of impellers. To this end, we
extend the approach used in Section 4.3 to avoid the limitations caused by its complex input.
The approach used in this example is based on our previous work about deep learning enabled 3D CAD model reuse
(Zhang and Zhou 2019), which is inspired by the fact that engineering drawings usually contain rich information for differ-
entiating each machining feature on the drawing. Imaging that if KDTMC could recognise each of machining features on
the engineering drawing, it could search the process knowledge of the similar feature in dynamic knowledge bases and then
produce decisions about the process planning of the feature according to the matched knowledge. To this end, we represent
each machining feature by its multiple detailed cutaway views sampled from the engineering drawings, which contain rich
information about the shapes and dimension parameters of the feature (as shown in Figure 12(a)). An 18-layer residual
network (ResNet18) proposed by (He et al. 2016) is used here for feature recognition. The detailed architecture of ResNet
1046 G. Zhou et al.

Figure 12. Example of intelligent process planning. (a) Training data; (b) learning architecture; (c) learning process; and (d) application
example.

18 is as shown in Figure 11(b), where the first convolution layer performs down-sampling with a stride of 2 and the rest
layers learn residual mapping with a stride of 1. ResNet18 is implemented by Python Keras and the learning process for
feature recognition is performed on a PC with a 3.70 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB Memory and a NVIDIA GeForce
GTX 1080Ti GPU. For learning purpose, a dataset that contains 84,000 cutaway feature views with size 224 × 224 for 20
types of features is constructed (Figure 11(a)), where 70% views are used for training and the rest for validation. Then,
the learning process is performed by Adam optimizer (Kingma and Ba 2015), where the initial learning rate and batch
size is set to 0.001 and 32, respectively. As shown in Figure 12(c), the learning process is finished in 200 steps with the
validation accuracy of 99.68%. More implementing and learning details could be found in our previous work (Zhang and
Zhou 2019).
The learned ResNet18 could recognise each machining feature on engineering drawings by simply inputting its views,
which could avoid the limitations of the approach used in Section 4.2. As shown in the left of Figure 11(d), each feature on
the input drawing of an impeller could be recognised by the learned ResNet18. Then, the rules learned in Section 4.2 could
be selected by matching the premise of each rule with the information of the recognised feature. Finally, KDTMC produces
process planning for the impeller according to the conclusions of the matched rules, as shown in the right of Figure 11(d).
In addition, if KDTMC accumulates some new machining features, the dataset could be extended flexibly. ResNet18 could
realise self-improving by updating the network parameters based on the new dataset.
 International Journal of Production Research 1047

Figure 13. Example of intelligent production scheduling for the impeller and blisk. (a) The overall digital twin model; (b) preliminary
production simulation; (c) production optimisation; and (d) optimal Gantt chart.

5.2.2. Intelligent production scheduling

This section introduces an example about intelligent production scheduling through an iterative cycle of production sim-
ulation and optimisation conducted in the constructed overall digital twin model. Here, historical knowledge in dynamic
knowledge bases is used to support the simulation parameters setting; and knowledge-based intelligent skills serve as an
engineering expert to understand the simulation results and, if necessary, produce an optimisation scheme for digital twin
model to conduct a new round of simulation.
Figure 13(b) illustrates an example of the preliminary simulation for the machining of impeller and blisk, which takes
the process planning results decided by Section 5.2.1 and machining time for each process informed by historical knowledge
as input. According to the simulation results, the total monthly output of the test bed for these parts is 176, where, however,
level of machines utilisation is unreasonable as both turning lathe and milling machine are bumper-to-bumper. Knowledge-
based intelligent skills inform us that we could remove some processes from the machining centre to the other two machine
tools. Here, we use the milling machine for finish milling the runner of blisk instead of the machining centre, and conduct
a new round of simulation (Figure 13(c)). New results show that the above optimisation scheme could improve the total
monthly output up to 259, and the level of machines utilisation for milling machine is also improved. Based on the simulation
results, the digital twin model could produce the optimal production scheduling plans to guide the production process.
Figure 13(d) shows a Gantt chart that indicates the optimal job schedule for the impeller and blisk.

5.2.3. Production process analysis and dynamic regulation

KDTMC could monitor the production process, for example, the status of WIP, machine tools and cutting tools, based on
the real-time digital twin data. This is helpful for KDTMC to understand, predict and manage the machining quality, time of
1048 G. Zhou et al.

Figure 14. Example of production process analysis and dynamic regulation for the impeller. (a) Milling process monitor; (b) WIP
tracking by RFID; and (c) predefined Gantt chart.

completion of WIP and health of manufacturing devices by comparing the real-time status with the predefined production
scheduling plans or historical cases in dynamic knowledge bases.
Figure 14 illustrates an example of production process analysis and dynamic regulation for the impeller. Figure 14(a)
shows the real-time status of the milling machine for milling a blade of the impeller. The status information includes the
current cutting tools and predefined cutting tools, theoretical feed rate and practical feed rate, theoretical spindle speed and
practical spindle speed, NC machining codes, machining time, etc. KDTMC could further compare the real-time status of the
impeller tracked by RFID (as shown in Figure 14(b)) with the predefined job schedule (as shown in Figure 14(c)) produced
by Section 5.2.2. This helps KDTMC understand and then predict if the production is advanced, normal or hysteretic. With
the predicted results, KDTMC could evaluate and decide if it is necessary to regulate or reschedule the future jobs to fit the
production orders like date of delivery. The current production status in this example fits with the predefined schedule and
need not regulate.

5.3. Discussion
KDTMC is a knowledge-driven autonomous manufacturing cell enabled by digital twin model, dynamic knowledge bases
and knowledge-based intelligent skills. From the perspectives of implementation and operation of KDTMC, discussions
could focus on the following two aspects.

5.3.1. Benefits
This paper proposes a knowledge-driven framework for KDTMC, which could serve as the minimum implementation
unit for intelligent manufacturing. The constructed test bed provides a practical insight into KDTMC, which indicates the
building blocks and also reveals the manufacturing execution mechanisms of KDTMC. Three application examples of
the test bed demonstrate that the proposed key enabling technologies, namely digital twin model, dynamic knowledge bases
and knowledge-based intelligent skills, could equip KDTMC with the capacities of self-thinking, self-decision making, self-
execution and self-improving. Therefore, it could maximise quality and throughput, while keeping flexibility and reducing
cost, by an intelligent perceiving, simulating, understanding, predicting, optimising and controlling strategy. In addition,
key enabling technologies and operation strategies of KDTMC could be migrated to intelligent workshop to construct an
autonomous production system towards intelligent manufacturing.
 International Journal of Production Research 1049

5.3.2. Challenges ahead

This paper explores several key aspects of KDTMC, but there are still some challenges needed to be addressed in the
near future. From the perspective of implementation of KDTMC, how to construct an accurate multiscale digital twin
model of WIP to understand and control the machining quality is still challenging. This is caused by the fact that the
real-time changes of the surface of WIP during machining process is hard to be perceived and simulated. Fortunately,
skin model (Schleich et al. 2014) might be used to solve this problem. In addition, the reliability and tolerance of current
knowledge-based intelligent skills, such as knowledge-driven decision-making (Zhang et al. 2017) and knowledge-based
intelligent process planning (Zhu et al. 2018), are less than satisfactory. More reasonable knowledge-based intelligent skills
should be developed to enhance the self-decision-making process, not only in reliability and tolerance aspects but also in
complexity and efficiency aspects. From the perspective of operation of KDTMC, how to keep operations synchronised
between physical space, digital space and knowledge space to make KDTMC remain stable is still made difficult by the
immature uniform data interfaces and out-of-step data computing technologies (Ding et al. 2019). Further works need to be
done on the development of a uniform data transmission and exchange interface and synchronous computing method for
the operation of KDTMC. We believe that with the continuous fusion of manufacturing technologies and new generation
information technologies, especially deep learning and edge computing, these challenges and limitations will be addressed
in the near future.

6. Conclusion and future work

This paper takes the autonomous manufacturing cell as implementation scenario and proposes a knowledge-driven frame-
work for KDTMC, which could support autonomous manufacturing by three key enabling technologies, including digital
twin model, dynamic knowledge bases and knowledge-based intelligent skills. Based on the results presented in this paper,
the following conclusions can be drawn.
(1) The proposed KDTMC is a knowledge-driven autonomous manufacturing cell, which could serve as the minimum
implementation unit for intelligent manufacturing.
(2) The analysed key enabling technologies could equip KDTMC with the capacities of self-thinking, self-decision
making, self-execution and self-improving. These capacities support the autonomous manufacturing of KDTMC
by an intelligent perceiving, simulating, understanding, predicting, optimising and controlling strategy.
(3) The constructed test bed provides a practical insight into the building blocks and manufacturing execution mecha-
nisms of KDTMC. In addition, its three application examples demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the
proposed KDTMC, which could be used for intelligent process planning, intelligent production scheduling and
production process analysis and dynamic regulation.
Future work will focus on the following three aspects. Firstly, we plan to build a high fidelity and accurate digital twin model
for multi-scale simulation of WIP based on skin model. Secondly, we will devote to develop more reasonable knowledge-
based intelligent skills, such as WIP status predicting model and dynamic job scheduling decision-making model, to fit the
requirements in reliability, tolerance and efficiency aspects, and also consider the treatment of uncertainties brought by these
skills. Lastly, we will consider data security and interoperability for bidirectional data transmission between physical space,
digital space and knowledge space of KDTMC.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This work was supported by the [Innovation Method Fund of China] under Grant [number 2015IM020600]; [National Intelligent Man-
ufacturing Project of China] (Application of intelligent manufacturing new mode on large power equipment); [National Natural Science
Foundation of China] under Grant [number 51705030]; and [Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities] under Grant
[number xzy022019066].

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