Digital twins, as a breakthrough technology development, has gained a huge impetus in industrial smart manufacturing, thus continually changing the manufacturing landscape. For a comprehensive understanding of smart manufacturing in the context of industrial digital twin technology, the latest research progresses of digital twin technology in the field of smart manufacturing are briefly reviewed in this paper, which include product design, product manufacturing, and safety maintenance. Then, some basic characteristics of the key technology are analyzed from the perspective of industrial digital twin technology, such as interactivity, twinning, composability and manageability. Further, typical application scenarios of digital twining technology in manufacturing are introduced from three aspects: product design and development, operation and maintenance management, and production control. Finally, the industrial digital twin technology for smart manufacturing is summarized and prospected.

smart manufacturing  /  industrial digital twins  /  key technical characteristics