## 2 Methodological and Operational Framework for CDTs
### Enablers for CDTs in Agile Supply Chains
#### 3.1 The Model  
The above enablers are functioning together in an integrated concept, where for each of the CDTs we can monitoring the flow of information from collection to understanding and behavioural alerting as indicated in Figure 2:The main steps are:  
Step #1: Configuration phase/Modelling: Here, we model a factory or any hierarchical structure of a factory/supply chain as a network of interconnected CDTs along with interactions and information to be exchanged. Applicable Enablers:  
* Profiling: Define the knowledge about the CDT, assign relationships with other CDTs (parent-child) to create the structure of the network
* Visualization: Monitor the configuration phase and the different parameters/CDT characteristics. * Lifecycle: Define status of the CDT, make ad-hoc or static CDTs, etc. * Governance: Define governance and decision-making policies; rules of collaboration among CDTs. Step #2: Collect data streams about the behaviour of the CDT: Each CDT will collect information about its behaviour from sensors, systems, other CDTs or external sources (standards, databases, etc.). Applicable Enablers:  
* Communication: Communication capabilities of the CDT that defines the sources of the data streams (either from the physical assets and/or from other CDTs that represent different information sources). * Computation: refers to basic calculations and transformations that happen either at the cloud and/or edge. * Trustworthiness: refers to the applicable security/privacy/trust services and policies that apply in the process of collecting info from other physical asset/CDTs. * Visualization: Data streams visualization. * Lifecycle: Monitor status of the CDT (modelled in step #1). * Governance: Apply governance policies. Step #3: Understand Context: Once data is collected it is mapped against the CDT's behavioural model. Through cognition services, the CDT understands potential trends, anomalies or creates new knowledge (in the form of new rules, associations, etc.) that is not yet known. Applicable Enablers:  
* Cognition: Analytics based on existing behaviour models or data-driven knowledge extraction that updates the existing model. Figure 2: CDT Operational Model. * Computation: Refers to whether cognition services will run at the cloud and/or edge. * Trustworthiness: Refers to the applicable security/privacy/trust services and policies that apply when processing info from other physical asset/CDTs. * Visualization: Knowledge visualizations. * Lifecycle: Monitor status of the CDT (modelled in step #1). * Governance: Apply governance policies. Step #4: Simulate and Prediction (S&P): Once an incident, trend or anomaly is identified (in the Understand and knowledge generation phase), S&P should allow simulation of the behaviour of the CDT in the future and predict potential failures in the future. Simulation is performed based on root-cause analysis and using the existing behaviour model (propagating the behaviour of the system in the future using the new data). Applicable Enablers:  
* Cognition: Simulation and prediction services propagating the system's behaviour with the new knowledge in the near future and identify potential anomalies. * Computation: Refers to whether cognition services will run at the cloud and/or edge. * Trustworthiness: refers to the applicable security/privacy/trust services and policies that apply when processing info from other physical asset/CDTs. * Visualization: Simulation and prediction visualizations. * Lifecycle: Monitor status of the CDT (modelled in step #1). * Governance: Apply governance policies. Step #5: Decisions (optimization): After simulating and predicting the CDT's behaviour, robust optimization services will offer suggestions for improvements. Optimization services will propose a new state of the CDT's behaviour, which has to be validated using the simulation and prediction services. This feedback loop will consider the new CDT's behaviour inputs, simulate and predict its behaviour in the system and assess the performance (is the problem solved? Is the trend fixed?