A Smart Healthcare Supply Chain Information Visualisation
Platform Based on Digital Twin Technology
Nan Sheng and Qi Chen
*
Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Guangzhou 510006, Guangdong, China
Keywords: Digital Twin Technology, Smart Healthcare, Supply Chain Information, Visualisation Platform.
Abstract: By building a unified purchase order-driven information visualisation platform for the smart healthcare supply
chain, it can effectively break down information silos and maximise the benefits of each node in the supply
chain. The objective of this paper is to study the design of a smart healthcare supply chain information
visualisation platform based on digital twin technology. The objectives of supply chain information flow
management are studied, different system functional modules are divided through business analysis, a virtual
warehouse modelling method based on digital twin is designed, and the composition of inventory information
management sub-module based on digital twin is studied to realise the visual control of the virtual warehouse.
Performance tests were conducted on the interface of the smart medical supply chain information visualisation
platform, and the experimental results showed that the platform has usability and stability.
1 INTRODUCTION
With the continuous reform of China's medical
system and the vigorous development of the socialist
market economy, the government requires enterprises
to provide drug supervision departments with full
monitoring and traceability of drugs from purchase to
supply and to final acceptance and use, and to strictly
monitor price changes in the drug distribution chain
to achieve openness in the purchase of medical drugs.
To ensure the safety and quality of medicines, and to
prevent the price of medicines from being increased
at multiple levels in the process of distribution,
resulting in inflated prices and ultimately increasing
the cost of treatment for people (Kiran, 2022; Yousef,
2020). To improve the overall level of service in the
national healthcare sector and to ensure the quality of
medical drugs through monitoring (Chaithanya,
2019).
In order to improve the management of medicines
and to increase the efficiency of their distribution,
Diéssica Oliveira-Dias has optimised the processes of
procurement, logistics and medicines management
according to modern logistics theory. As a sub-system
of the HIS, a new software for the pharmaceutical
*
Corresponding author
supply logistics system has also been developed.
Seven measures were taken in the area of healthcare
supply chain management and the initial
establishment of an in-hospital logistics system. All
these measures have produced very satisfactory
results. Based on a high level of HIS, optimising the
medical supply chain process and building an in-
hospital logistics system can improve the
management of medicines (Diéssica, 2022). Other
scholars have analyzed the negative impact of the
traditional "zero inventory" management model of
high-value medical consumables on medical quality
and medical safety, introduced the measures taken by
Fu Wai Hospital to strengthen the supply chain
management of high-value medical consumables in
order to ensure medical quality and medical safety,
and discussed the prospects of supply chain
management of high-value medical consumables (T.
S. Deepu, 2022). Ryan Atkins further elaborated on
the digital twin concept of health and medical
software product information management in relation
to regulatory requirements, FDA and EU Unique
Device Identification (UDI) systems, and software
product lifecycle management. In addition to
illustrating the digital twin concept, we present the
advantages and limitations of digital twin-based
592
Sheng, N. and Chen, Q.
A Smart Healthcare Supply Chain Information Visualisation Platform Based on Digital Twin Technology.
DOI: 10.5220/0012040200003620
In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Economic Management and Model Engineering (ICEMME 2022), pages 592-598
ISBN: 978-989-758-636-1
Copyright
c
2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
approaches to health and medical software design and
development. The approach intentionally requires
better support for agile development techniques than
classical software development in this application
area (Ryan, 2022). Thus, it is necessary for hospitals
to implement a hospital supply chain management
system to manage and monitor procurement in a
uniform manner, both at the level of national policy
and from the hospital itself to improve
competitiveness and reduce costs.
The innovation of this thesis is to build the
platform architecture of digital twin technology based
on the smart medical supply chain information
visualization platform from the perspective of digital
twin technology application, systematically introduce
the relevant technology of the platform, and design
the inventory information management sub-module
based on the twin warehouse model based on digital
twin, and explore the relevant medical supply chain
business applications by combining the current
practical needs and development trend of smart
medical. It explores the business applications of the
medical supply chain, which will provide the
theoretical and technical basis for the application
development of medical supply chain information.
2 DESIGN OF A SMART
HEALTHCARE SUPPLY CHAIN
INFORMATION
VISUALIZATION PLATFORM
BASED ON DIGITAL TWIN
TECHNOLOGY
2.1 Objective of Supply Chain
Information Flow Management
Supply chain information flow management is to
integrate the information of each end enterprise in the
supply chain and establish a close and smooth
information flow network, so as to reflect the
traceability of products and improve the operational
efficiency of each link. In the pharmaceutical
industry, supply chain information flow management
is the integrated management of a system formed by
information on production, quality, inventory, market
demand, customer data, distribution and other
operational aspects (Cephas, 2022; Roman, 2022).
Supply chain inventory management is a
development of traditional inventory management,
linked and distinct from each other, with its own
characteristics (Pham, 2022). It requires
consideration of how to minimise the cost of
inventory rather than the total cost, how to co-
ordinate with other enterprises and do a good job of
cooperation rather than operating independently, and
the uncertainties of various aspects. To maximize the
benefits of each node of the supply chain (Michael,
2022).
2.2 Digital Twin
The digital twin consists of two kinds of digital
optimisation drives, one model-driven and one data-
driven, i.e. a digital model or enhanced data
constitutes a suitable solution to an industrial
application problem (Tal, 2021). The focus of digital
model simulation is different from that of traditional
model simulation, which is concerned with the
fidelity and reproducibility of the model, i.e. whether
it can accurately reproduce the properties and state of
the physical object. Digital model simulation, on the
other hand, is more concerned with the changing
relationships during the dynamic simulation process.
Data-driven simulation is the opposite. Data-driven
simulation in digital twin technology is more
concerned with the authenticity and accuracy of the
data in the simulation process, while the data
generated in the traditional simulation process is to a
certain extent for the reference of simulation
researchers only (Alok, 2021). In this paper, we use
the features of digital twin technology to replace the
physical entity with a virtual model to monitor the
inventory status of the warehouse more intuitively
through 3D modelling by collecting operational data
of the warehouse environment.
2.3 Virtual Warehouse Construction
Process
According to the characteristics of the real mapping
of the digital twin, the digital model of the server
room is the digital twin of the physical object of the
server room. This chapter uses Blender and three.js
together to model the way to design the virtual server
room model, server room modelling specific
implementation steps are as follows:
(1) Model building of the server room
The model is then edited, resized and rendered in
Blender software, while the texture maps of the
machine room equipment are collected and optimised
by PS. The optimised images are then applied to the
surface of the model and the real machine room
equipment model is rendered (Mustufa, 2021).
A Smart Healthcare Supply Chain Information Visualisation Platform Based on Digital Twin Technology
593
(2) Machine room scene layout
Export the server room model to three.js and add
physical effects to the model, such as collision
detection, friction, elasticity and other effects, to
make the model more in line with the real server
room. Layout the equipment in the machine room
under the same coordinate system to achieve
consistency between the layout of the machine room
3D scene and the actual machine room layout
(Hakim, 2021).
(3) Optimisation of scenes
Using scene loading optimization and model
rendering optimization means to accelerate the
rendering of scene models and improve the system
operation rate.
(4) Scene model visualisation
Display the server room scene model to the
browser interface through programming language. In
addition to the above equipment and scene
visualisation of the server room, the system should
also contain other visualisation information of the
server room, such as server room overview
visualisation, asset visualisation, motion loop
visualisation, alarm visualisation, etc. Such
visualisation information is displayed on the interface
in real time through the status kanban board (Sahar,
2021).
3 INVESTIGATION AND STUDY
OF A DIGITAL TWIN
TECHNOLOGY-BASED
INFORMATION
VISUALISATION PLATFORM
FOR THE SMART
HEALTHCARE SUPPLY CHAIN
3.1 System Architecture
The system is developed using the C/SClient/Server()
architecture model, the main components of which
are the client and the server. When going to the
production site to deploy the system, not only do you
need to install the database on the server, you also
need to deploy the system services, after which you
need to install the client on the client machine. This
architecture model has two main advantages: firstly,
it runs faster and with less lag, and secondly, it makes
full use of client machine resources. The architecture
of a digital twin-based rapid response manufacturing
system can be divided into four main parts: the user
interaction layer, the system functionality layer, the
object layer and the support layer.
(1) User interaction layer
The core technology of the user interaction layer
is to realise the human-computer interaction between
the operator and the software system. It contains
various applications and interfaces on the client side,
through which the user can edit and process data and
information, most of which will be displayed to the
user in the form of diagrams, tables and virtual
scenes.
(2) System function layer
The system function layer is the core of the entire
digital twin-based rapid response manufacturing
system and contains most of the programs that
implement the business logic. It receives information
data from users and production sites through data
interfaces, processes the information data and is also
responsible for issuing instructions to production
sites.
(3) Object layer and support layer, the
The object layer and support layer use the open
source NHibernate framework for database
connectivity, which aims to manipulate data by
establishing a mapping of entity classes of database
objects and thus data manipulation, the core of which
lies in the manipulation of the underlying data and
data storage.
3.2 Twin Warehouse Model
The movement of the model in the virtual warehouse
mainly translates, rotates and scales the 3D model
equally. The 3D model represents the spatial position
of each vertex by coordinates and changes the
coordinate vector to achieve the motion of the 3D
model. The initial position P = (x, y, z) is expressed
as (x, y, z, 1) and the transformed position P' = (x', y',
z') is expressed as (x', y', z', 1), the translation,
rotation and scaling of the 3D model can be expressed
by equation (1) as follows.
==
sttt
pbbb
pbbb
pbbb
zyxPMP
zyx
z
y
x
333231
232221
131211
)1,,,('
(1)
Where M is the four-dimensional coordinate
transformation matrix, by changing the four-
dimensional transformation matrix can manipulate
the three-dimensional model for movement,
translation transformation, three-dimensional model
from point P to P' point, the transformation process
can be seen in equation (2).
ICEMME 2022 - The International Conference on Economic Management and Model Engineering
594
)1,,,(
1
0100
0010
0001
)1,,,('
zyx
zyx
tztytx
ttt
zyxPMP +++=
==
(2)
The tx, ty, tz in equation (2) represent the distance
the model travels along the X, Y and Z axes
respectively.
4 ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH OF
A DIGITAL TWIN
TECHNOLOGY-BASED
INFORMATION
VISUALIZATION PLATFORM
FOR THE SMART
HEALTHCARE SUPPLY CHAIN
4.1 System Functional Module Design
The main modules of the hospital supply chain
management system based on digital twin technology
are divided into four main modules: permission
management, procurement management, item
management and supplier management as shown in
Figure 1, and a number of sub-functions are
subdivided under these four main modules as
described below.
Figure 1: System Function Module
There are four sub-modules involved in the
Permissions Management module, namely User
Management, Role Management, Task Management
and Function Management, of which User
Management is mainly used to manage the basic
information of users and their role assignment
information. The role management module not only
needs to manage the basic information of the role but
also needs to have the function of managing users
under the role and the function of assigning tasks to
the role.
The procurement management module contains
eight main sub-modules, namely pending items,
inventory information management, purchase plan
creation, purchase plan review, purchase order
response, purchase order creation, purchase order
confirmation and purchase order acceptance. Pending
items are mainly for the user to show the pending
items in the procurement management process such
as suppliers need to see their supply applications and
supply orders to be responded and shipped, while the
warehouse owner needs to see information such as
pending audits, new purchase plans and supply
applications from suppliers. The Inventory
Management module provides the user with the
ability to view the inventory of items, and also
provides the ability to set maximum and minimum
stock limits, which needs to be synchronised with the
hospital on a regular basis to share inventory data.
The item management module is mainly for
managing the information of hospital items. In this
Intelligent medical supply chain information
visualization platform
Permission management
purchasing management
Item management
Supplier management
A Smart Healthcare Supply Chain Information Visualisation Platform Based on Digital Twin Technology
595
module, users can add, delete, change and view the
item information and other basic operations.
The supplier management module mainly
involves five sub-modules: supplier information
management, qualification application, qualification
audit, SMS records and qualification testing. The
supplier information management module is mainly
used to maintain the basic information of suppliers,
and the qualification application module is mainly
used to enter the supplier's qualification certificate
information and upload the corresponding pictures.
4.2 Components of the Digital Twin-
based Inventory Management Sub-
module
The inventory information management sub-module
of the digital twin-based procurement management
module consists of four main components, namely
physical inventory, virtual inventory, inventory
service system and inventory twin data. Physical
inventory mainly refers to the actual warehouse site,
which is an objective physical collection of inventory,
including equipment resources, material resources,
tooling resources, etc. Virtual inventory is a digital
representation of the physical production line and is a
faithful digital mirror of physical inventory. Its
function is to monitor, forecast and control inventory
in real time. The inventory service system is a
collection of data-driven service systems that receive
the inventory data uploaded by the inventory twin and
use it to provide support and services for the digital
control of inventory, such as management control and
optimisation services. The inventory twin contains
data related to physical inventory, virtual inventory
and inventory service systems, as well as data derived
from the fusion of the three, and is used to drive
physical inventory, virtual inventory and inventory
service systems.
4.3 System Performance Testing
Prior to the performance testing of the smart
healthcare supply chain information visualisation
platform, a certain amount of basic data was first
created for the main information tables, including
1000 items of supplier information, 1000 items of
item information, 1000 items of purchasing plan, etc.
After completing the data construction, the main
functional interfaces of different modules of the
system were stress tested. Ensure that the system
performance meets the requirements.
After the performance test of the system, the
response time without concurrent system will be
400ms~700ms, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Performance Test of Functional Interfaces of the System
Monitoring
point
No concurrent system response
time (ms)
100 Concurrent system response
time (ms)
200 Concurrent system
response time (ms)
1 692 714 1021
2 495 772 924
3 528 777 854
4 600 834 955
5 514 701 914
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596
Figure 2: Test Results.
As shown in Figure 2, which is a performance test
of some of the important interfaces of the system with
different response times under different numbers of
concurrency, it can be concluded that most of the
interfaces can achieve a response speed within
1000ms with less than 200 concurrency. The
requirements for non-functional requirements are
met.
5 CONCLUSIONS
In order to improve the level and quality of healthcare
services in hospitals, the entire supply chain of items
in hospitals needs to be extended to ensure the
traceability of medical drugs and equipment and to
improve the efficiency of the entire depot
procurement. Therefore, the main implementation of
the smart medical supply chain information
visualisation platform proposed in this paper is based
on digital twin technology, which enables the sharing
of basic inventory and other information between
suppliers and hospitals. Due to the lack of time and
limitations of the authors' capabilities, as well as the
immature development and application of medical
big data, the research is inevitably deficient, and the
main issues are as follows: With changes in the
medical environment, the gradual development of big
data technology and changes in the policy system, the
key technologies and main business applications of
the smart medical supply chain information
visualisation platform also need to be continuously
adjusted, optimised and improved in line with the
actual situation and needs.
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