Advancing Towards an Adaptive Digital Twin System for Supply Chain and Transportation (DIGI-CHAIN)

Research Project, 2024 – 2025

The COVID-19 pandemic and trade disruptions have highlighted the urgency of developing innovative supply chain and transportation solutions that can enhance resilience and promote self adaptation to mitigate risk and loss. One promising solution is the use of digital twin systems to exploit real-time data, enabling the flexible reconfiguration of transportation and supply chains without sacrificing quality or incurring high costs. Thus, this research aims to investigate the potential of digital twin technology in mitigating the detrimental effects of disruptions in the manufacturing and transportation industry. By leveraging digital twins, advanced intelligent data services can be developed to enhance transportation planning, supplier selection, and traceability. These services can
be quickly adapted to changing external disruptions such as natural hazards, human-made disruptions, system accidents, or financial issues, thereby improving the resilience of transportation systems and whole supply chains. The project will take a holistic approach by considering the entire supply chain and transport system to examine the coordination and integration between the supply chain and
transport system to identify several key performance criteria. These criteria may include quality, environmental impact, cost, recyclability, among others, as well as factors that influence decision making when considering multiple criteria. By examining these criteria, factors and associated information, the task aims to identify processes or products that could be understood better, or made
more efficient, with a digital twin. The project involves a wide-ranging collaboration between different actors and functions, leading to enhanced research collaboration between Chalmers, UGOT
and Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre. The project's in-depth knowledge will provide good prospects for research collaboration and externally funded projects within the studied area. Overall, the project's outcomes are expected to enhance the understanding of closing the gap in the transportation and supply chain interface, leading to more efficient and sustainable logistics and transportation systems