Background and problem: Through the important role of modeling different work environments as one of the building blocks of design and development processes, which provides the designer with the requisite processed data and defects within the target interaction environment, and in the context of the massive evolution of the innovations in existing technology, the emergence of new systems products with complex design and manufacturing processes and with high production costs, the research problem is that the new challenges for the designer in the modeling process appear to be a fundamental and indispensable need for the designer, as well as the lack of explanatory research that develops the design process, and through it the designer can challenge the rigid concepts of traditional modeling that have been going on for so long. Digital Twin is one of the advanced digital modeling techniques that opens a new space for Ergonomics specialists to formulate the working environment, providing them with the knowledge and methodology that will enable them to develop all possible future scenarios, and to conduct modeling and simulation processes to avoid all flaws at an early stage.
Objectives: The research aims to provide a general framework that uses Digital Twin as one of the advanced digital simulation models to simulate the stages of design processes for industrial products/systems in general, and to use it to constantly also check the effectiveness and validity of all the all procedures followed in each step taken by the designer during design and development processes. The Digital Twin serves as an important indicator in the measurement and verification processes, by correcting all future errors that may occur during the early stages of the planning and design process and not in the advanced stages such as manufacturing and production.
Methodology: The research relied on the inductive approach to study the problem, achieve the research hypothesis, and indicate its importance.
Results : The research provides a methodological framework based on Digital Twin modeling, which aims to assess the overall performance of the work environment during design and development processes by modeling and rigorously examining 3D hypothetical scenarios, in which way all indicators of risk that may occur can be evaluated and proposed solutions presented.The Digital Twin can study any situation with a high production cost, analyze tasks within different stages of operations, and infer the effectiveness of the proposed framework by modeling the entire work cycle. Risks can also be assessed early for work conditions, work force, manual handling, repetitive procedures, and sources of overload mechanical load.Digital twin simulation identifies issues regarding expected risk sources, that that were previously monitored and took up to several hours, therefore, adjustments would be made in the proposed scenario then conduct another simulation based on solutions testing. Hence, we would have significant reduction in the overall risk index within production processes.The proposed framework allows through Digital Twin modeling to evaluate the work environment in a faster and more accurate way, as the evaluation times are significantly reduced, in addition to the possibility of repeating the evaluation an infinite number of times to reach the closest and optimal solution, as well as the implementation of final experimental data on manufacturing processes and actual use to obtain impressive results.The procedures followed within the Digital Twin modeling provide improvements to the inspection techniques during the actual measurement and verification processes, by providing logical real-time analysis of the interaction process, and then achieving innovative solutions in the working environment and making changes in the overall planning by simulation before starting the actual implementation processes.Digital twin technology allows direct communication between the elements of interaction within work environments, due to the usage of its own simulation that takes into account physical laws, to ensure more disciplined factors within the interaction environment, and to immerse users more realistically than previous technologies, which makes safety assessments clearer, and closer to the actual reality within the real interaction environment.