Digitization and robotization
The term digital twin is quite enigmatic and has a modern sound, while the first mentions of it date back to the 1960s, when NASA, as part of the Apollo program, made twins of the Command Module, the Lunar Module and the Lunar Rover. All this to have reflections of real objects sent into space. However, being available on Earth, they can serve as facilities for maintenance, technical support and solving current faults. They were a kind of medium between a man and a physically inaccessible machine.
A digital twin can be defined as a software representation of a physical system, process, or assets designed for the optimization of organizational processes through real-time analytics. In other words, a digital twin is the virtual model of a physical product, process, or service.
A DTO is essentially a structured model that brings all of your business data together, on a single dashboard. Once your organization’s digital twin is created, you can instantly see the operational bottlenecks, the processes that are stagnating, and any duplicate or weak services. But, more than that, a DTO allows you to monitor, control, and continuously optimize your organization.
According to Thomas Kaiser, SAP Senior Vice President of IoT: “Digital twins are becoming a business imperative, covering the entire life cycle of an asset or process and forming the foundation for connected products and services. A company that fails to respond will be left behind.”
Types of Digital Twins
Digital twins are divided into:
- Digital Twin Prototype (DTP),
- Digital Twin Instance (DTI)
- Digital Twin Aggregate (DTA).
The goals of using a digital twin are defined as: Predictive and Interrogative.
The pace of development of this technology (DTT) is determined by the co-developing technological trends referred to as “disruptive innovations”. We include among others hyper-automation and multi-tasking in relation to people, and blockchain and distributed cloud in relation to broadly understood computing spaces.
Digital Twin implementation process
Where to start?
The simplest digital twin is a CAD model showing the future execution of the product. However, the emergence of new technologies has allowed us to draw more since then. The digital twin system is evolving and its concept is changing. Currently, technologies such as: augmented reality, wireless connections, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, stereolithography, 3D printing, Wi-fi networks, 5G networks, documentation management systems in the company support: premature visualization and testing of models, simultaneous work of many people, people in many locations, faster communication between computers, but also communication between physical objects and their twins, structured exchange of data and information and recording the history of processes, in short: mobility, availability and data exchange with feedback.
What are the business benefits of implementing DT technology?
The Digital Twin DT displaces the “trial and error” method. He treats the product not as an ordinary 3D model, but as a whole, synergistic system. It allows you to check the product / mechanism in terms of ergonomics, durability, intended operation, assembly and disassembly, service methods before the product is even created. A simple static model is not able to offer enough information to reliably determine these aspects. That’s why Digital Twin gives you the ability to reproduce digitally.
The use of DTT covers the entire life cycle of products wherever iterative development and improvement of product quality are important. Construction is also one of these sectors. The Digital Twin technology will help to manage entire urban complexes more effectively, e.g. in terms of tracking city monitoring records, controlling traffic lights, studying meteorological phenomena (temperature, humidity, ground vibrations), collecting information about collisions and reacting to them with traffic reorganization.
Undoubtedly, the greatest benefit is the setting of the optimal path for introducing changes in facility management. Before the IoT and digital twins, designers and decision makers spent countless hours weighing the costs and benefits, weighing the pros and cons of planned changes before they were applied, where it is worth noting that these judgments were somewhat subjective and not supported reliable data.
Raport Future of Making
Are you wondering if your company is ready to take on the challenges faced by the industrial sector?
Would you like to verify the strengths and weaknesses of processes in your organization? We invite you to complete our Future of Making survey. Based on the answers, we will prepare a personalized report that will be a constructive analysis of the schemes and will help to assess the readiness to implement modern solutions.
Technologie kształtujące rozwój przemysłu
Firmy produkcyjne są pod coraz większą presją, by dostarczać jak najlepszej jakości produkty, po niższych kosztach oraz w krótszym czasie.
Sytuację dodatkowo komplikują zmieniające się uwarunkowania gospodarcze, niestabilny rynek energetyczny oraz międzynarodowe regulacje dotyczące emisji odpadów i zanieczyszczeń. Z tych względów, to w modernizacji procesów projektowania i wytwarzania leży przyszłość firm sektora przemysłowego.