Digital twins and collaborative robotics: a SWOT-AHP analysis to assess sustainable applications

Digital twins, complex infrastructures able to connect physical systems with virtual ones in a bi-directional way, seem to be promising enablers of production system replication in real time. In the manufacturing field, cooperation and collaboration between humans and robots (properly cobots) in a shared environment is spreading. Digital twins and cobots are becoming fundamental tools to support humans in the workplace. This study aims at evaluating the benefits as well as criticalities of applying digital twin technology for cobot implementation within manufacturing operations. The adopted hybrid methodology combines SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis and AHP (Analytical Hierarchical Process) to assess the sustainability of digital twins and cobot implementation in a specific workplace by analyzing economic, as well as safety and environmental impacts. The main findings reported that application of digital twins and cobots may improve safety in the workplace by reducing hazards. Furthermore, the potential integration of digital twins and cobots represents an effective solution to overcome the weaknesses and threats of correlated systems, that have been envisaged separately. The potential contribution of using digital twins in designing and managing these applications could help researchers and technicians. Results have practical implications as they allow for the application of optimal innovative solutions in the manufacturing and re-manufacturing sector with an extending domain for further research.