Toward digital twins for sawmill production planning and control: benefits, opportunities, and challenges

• Published in: International journal of production research Vol. 61; no. 7; pp. 2190 - 2213
• Main Authors: Chabanet, Sylvain, Bril El-Haouzi, Hind, Morin, Michael, Gaudreault, Jonathan, Thomas, Philippe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Taylor & Francis 03.04.2023; Taylor & Francis LLC
• Subjects: Automatic; Computer Science; Digital twin; Digital twins; Engineering Sciences; forest product supply chain; Heterogeneity; Industry 4.0; Literature reviews; Other; Production planning; production planning and control; Raw materials; sawmill; Sawmills; Supply chains; Forest Product Supply Chain; Industry 4.0; Digital Twin; Sawmill; Production Planning and Control
• ISSN: 0020-7543; 1366-588X
• DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2022.2068086

Sawmills are key elements of the forest product industry supply chain, and they play important economic, social, and environmental roles. Sawmill production planning and control are, however, challenging owing to several factors, including, but not limited to, the heterogeneity of the raw material. The emerging concept of digital twins introduced in the context of Industry 4.0 has generated high interest and has been studied in a variety of domains, including production planning and control. In this paper, we investigate the benefits digital twins would bring to the sawmill industry via a literature review on the wider subject of sawmill production planning and control. Opportunities facilitating their implementation, as well as ongoing challenges from both academic and industrial perspectives, are also studied.