This paper reviews and identifies issues in the application of virtual commissioning technology for automated manufacturing systems. While the real commissioning of a manufacturing system involves a real plant system and a real controller, the virtual commissioning deals with a virtual plant model and a real controller. The expected benefits of virtual commissioning are the reduction of debugging and correction efforts during the subsequent real commissioning stage. However, it requires a virtual plant model and hence still requires significant amount time and efforts. Two main issues are identified, the physical model construction of a virtual device, and the logical model construction of a virtual device. This paper reviews the current literature related to the two issues and proposes future research directions to achieve the full utilization of virtual commissioning technology.