The digital twin (DT) is undergoing an increase in interest from both an academic and industrial perspective. Although many authors proposed and described various frameworks for DT implementation in the manufacturing industry context, there is an absence of real-life implementation studies reported in the available literature. The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate feasibility of the DT implementation under real conditions of a production plant that is specializing in manufacturing of the aluminum components for the automotive industry. The implementation framework of the DT for engine block manufacturing processes consists of three layers: physical layer, virtual layer and information-processing layer. A simulation model was created using the Tecnomatix Plant Simulation (TPS) software. In order to obtain real-time status data of the production line, programmable logic control (PLC) sensors were used for raw data acquisition. To increase production line productivity, the algorithm for bottlenecks detection was developed and implemented into the DT. Despite the fact that the implementation process is still under development and only partial results are presented in this paper, the DT seems to be a prospective real-time optimization tool for the industrial partner.

The paper deals with a real manufacturing system improving through simulation models creation. The aim of the paper is to present the possibilities of simulations models as a tool for optimization and quantification of proposals to improve production lines in engineering production. The research is carried out as a case study of a production plant in a Slovak machine-building company dealing with the components for the automotive sector production. The paper presents the creation of simulation models of the original line as well as the simulation model of improved line where robotic arms were used for material handling. Output statistics comparing the performance of the original line and its improved variant are part of the paper. We expect that in the coming years there will be an increased demand for creation of simulation models of manufacturing systems by modern enterprises that will try to implement the Industry 4.0 strategy and thus increase its competitiveness.