Industrial Digital Twins Scale Up in Scope, Complexity, and Applications

Simulation tools have long helped to speed product development by streamlining the prototyping process and reducing both cost and waste. It was only a matter of time before OEMs thought of applying such a useful concept to their manufacturing and logistics operations in the form of digital twins.

Like simulations, digital twins are virtual, computer-generated versions of physical systems, such as an industrial robot, a manufacturing process, the complex layout of an automated storage and retrieval system, or even the inputs and nodes of a global supply chain. What distinguishes twins from simulations, however, is that they incorporate real-time data from the physical systems and processes they emulate and often allow users to provide active feedback to those systems.

This active connection to real-world processes makes digital twins more of a virtual environment than a virtual thing. They do not simply provide a static model of some current state of affairs. Digital twins have the unique ability to model a system’s current design and future behavior to support a wide range of tasks, such as virtually commissioning systems, optimizing production, or enabling predictive maintenance.

“I was at a conference recently where somebody said, ‘Well, digital twins are just a new name for simulation;’ and I thought, ‘Nothing could be further from the truth,’” said Dale Tutt, vice president of Industry Strategy at Siemens Digital Industries Software. “Twins are more than the 3D geometry, the simulation, or the analytics. They tie all of those data points and functions together to provide a high-fidelity accurate model of a situation.”

Read the entire article on A3's website: www.automate.org/robotics/industry-insights/digital-twins-scope-complexity-applications