Digital infrastructures as the basis for implementing digital twinning

Companies aim to spur quality, effectiveness, efficiency, and support growth. At the same time, however, conditions change significantly, imposing demands on companies to be flexible and agile with regard to their production environment. Changes involved are based on the business strategy, internal and external stressors, and impact operational and tactical level. The adaptability of the digital infrastructure determines the flexibility, control, and possibility of supporting decision-making in production processes. This paper specifies requirements and a blueprint for an adaptable digital infrastructure. Furthermore, components such as middleware are described that are needed to enable not only a flexible digital infrastructure, but to get the right information, at the right moment, to the right entity, system, person, and decision-maker.