Digital Twins (DTs) have become increasingly important across sectors, particularly for complex production systems that require continuous monitoring, analysis, and support for decision-making. The growing importance of Digital Twins is evident in the number of scientific publications and patents on the Topic in recent years. As the adoption of Digital Twins gains momentum, the challenge of systematically defining and managing Digital Twin requirements becomes a pressing concern.
Digital Twins are not static entities. They need to be continuously aligned with system goals, changing operational environments, and stakeholder expectations. In reality, however, Digital Twin requirements are dispersed across various documents, tools, and teams, making it difficult to track, validate, and manage them over time. This has a direct bearing on the sustainability, usability, and maintainability of Digital Twin solutions.
To meet this challenge, we are currently developing a web-based application to facilitate the organisation, cataloguing, and management of Digital Twin requirements in a domain-independent manner. The proposed application is expected to be useful across different production systems and industrial domains, enabling continuous requirements gathering in close cooperation with domain experts and facilitating communication among all stakeholders involved in the Digital Twin lifecycle.
One of the main purposes of the software tool is to ensure a single platform for gathering, structuring, tracking, and verifying requirements throughout the project life cycle. The software tool helps ensure that Digital Twins implementation aligns with project objectives, even as systems, technologies, and project stakeholder requirements evolve.
The software tool is based on a systematic literature review titled “Fundamental requirements of Digital Twins for production systems in the Oil and Gas industry: A systematic literature review.” Although the systematic literature review is based on a specific industry, it has identified fundamental requirement categories applicable to Digital Twin development.
The proposed software tool will simplify the integration and analysis of information in Digital Twin projects by ensuring that requirements are managed and verified. The software tool will help improve automation, system evolution, and management of complex production systems supported by Digital Twins.
The software can be accessed at: https://periodic-table.k8s.inf.ufrgs.br/
