Digital twin transforming manufacturing

Digital Twin in manufacturing supports conceptualization,collaboration and comparison, which bring effective problem solving capabilities and innovation.

Previously, the only way of gaining detailed information about the status of any operating industrial equipment was by personally inspecting that equipment. But, with an increase in computing power and connectivity, it is now possible to virtualize this task by creating and maintaining a digital representation. This digital representation is also known as a digital twin in manufacturing. Digital twin not only helps in cutting down prototyping or construction costs but, it also enables to predict failures more easily. Thus, digital twin helps in opening new ways for improving productivity.

For creating a functional digital twin, you should focus on logically enhancing the sophistication in 3D design. Complex products are now increasing, using enhanced 3D designs to model the product for optimization in various aspects, such as operational efficiency, maintainability, simplicity for manufacturing, predicting failure and so on.The use of IoT technology allows comparison between the performance of real installed physical machines with the predicted behaviour observed in the digital twin.

The core capabilities of digital twins can be projected into the following 4 facets

Digital twin in manufacturing: Product Design

Every product design is based on some basic data; analysis from this data can be helpful for gaining insights into various affordances of the product. This data is valuable in designing of various aspects of the product’s digital twin, such as materials, serviceability, performance, backward compatibility, and more. When product developers are armed with this information, they can easily mitigate future problems and effectively deliver more value for customers in the right areas.

Digital ttwins for product design are used in capital intensive products like jet engines and heavy machinery.

Digital twin in manufacturing: Product Manufacturing

In spite of having the best design and engineering, product defects can occur during the manufacturing or in the supply chain. Digital twins can help in identifying the root cause of production problems, like assembly line faults, factory defects, or supplier errors. By correlating smart factory data with digital twins, defects from manufacturing stage can be easily minimized.Digital twin in manufacturing: Product Service

Servicing is an important yet, expensive proposition for most product manufacturers. Digital twins can help in enhancing product servicing in two ways: (a) Manufacturers can predict when a part or component is likely to fail and immediately initiate a service call. (b) Technician training and onsite repairs can be more efficient as they have clear 3D virtual models and step by step instructions for quickly performing the repair.

Digital twin in manufacturing: Product Usage

Several products are used in different verticals and in multiple environments. For instance, a pump might be used in pumping oil in gulf nations while, the same make and model of the pump might be pumping water in arid deserts of Africa. Thus, one pump performs in different operating conditions and this can lead to various degradation factors over time. In such situations, digital twins can be used for understanding the usage characteristics, workloads, conditions, unit economics, degradation and other factors. Based on these factors product manufacturers can have accurate insights for making actionable decisions.

Thus, insights that are derived from digital twins can help in innovating exciting business models. As more granular information is available with the development of digital twins, business leaders can effectively apply new economic models and gain profits.