Virtual Commissioning in Machine Tool Manufacturing: a Survey from Industry

Virtual commissioning has acquired a major interest with the introduction of Industry 4.0. It is demonstrated that virtual commissioning can significantly reduce the commissioning time, error rate and costs. However, industry is still experiencing difficulties with the integration of these new technologies. This paper is one of the first empirical surveys conducted in the industry that aims at understanding the challenges and current practices with respect to virtual commissioning, with special focus on the machine tool manufacturing sector. The survey contextualizes the practice of virtual commissioning and the digital twin in industry, and benchmarks the results with academia, in which main gaps are identified. Keywords: empirical survey, virtual commissioning, digital twin, machine tool manufacturing, testing