In today's customer-centric market, companies must align their product designs, processes, and delivery with customer needs. However, manufacturing departments face several challenges such as extended time to market, waste, and design inefficiencies. Other key challenges include maintaining operational efficiency while reducing downtime. Ensuring that products meet the required quality standards is time-consuming and expensive. In a competitive market, these issues can hinder business success.
Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA), and machine language (ML) have addressed many of these challenges, but there is still room for improvement.
Enter Digital Twin Technology: The key to smart manufacturing!
Digital twin technology is rapidly gaining popularity across a variety of industry sectors. In fact, the global digital twin market, valued at $12.91 billion in 2023, is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39.8% from 2023 to 2032.
A 2022 report by Research and Markets highlights that 60% of executives across various industries are planning to integrate digital twin technology in their projects to increase revenue.
But why is digital twin technology making such a big advance in the industrial sector?
Let's find out more about this groundbreaking technology!
What is Digital Twin Technology?
Digital twins are essentially virtual representations of physical products at different stages in their lifecycle. This can include actual devices, objects, machines, services, intangible assets, etc.
Digital twins provide a detailed, dynamic representation of the physical object they emulate by connecting a virtual model to a real device, with continuous data transfer keeping the virtual model synchronized with the real object.
How does the digital twin make manufacturing smarter?
In manufacturing, digital twins can be generated for various real-world scenarios, such as an asset, a specific production line, an end product, etc. These digital representations provide deep insight and visibility into the production process.
Manufacturing involves a complex network of processes and products with multiple data points. These data points can represent products, assets, entire lines, processes, etc. A digital twin replicates a manufacturing operation to capture, map, and structure process variables in a continuously updated database.
Technologies used in digital twin implementation
Internet of Things (IoT): IoT sensors enable continuous data transfer.
Cloud Computing: It helps in storing large amounts of data that can be accessed by various parties.
AI: AI collects data and provides valuable insights. AI also makes accurate predictions.
Extended Reality (XR): XR technology facilitates the digital modeling of physical objects and processes.
Benefits of Digital Twin in Manufacturing
1. Risk Reduction
Companies can test and validate their products before real production begins, helping to identify potential process failures early and reducing risk by simulating different scenarios.
2. Facilitate predictive maintenance
The data provided by the simulation model helps to identify bottlenecks in the system, helps to accurately schedule preventive maintenance, reduces maintenance costs and increases the efficiency of the production line.
3. Real-time monitoring and control
One of the biggest challenges in manufacturing is getting a detailed view of your systems in real time. Digital twins can help overcome this challenge by providing real-time data to facilitate remote monitoring and control of processes.
4. Seamless collaboration
Digital twins provide a single version of the truth to various stakeholders, who can access the data 24/7 and collaborate through a single platform to achieve better outcomes.
5. Data-driven decision making
Large volumes of real-time data and advanced analytics lead to better and faster decisions on adjusting manufacturing systems.
6. Delight your customers
Digital twin technology makes it easy to simulate different product variations in a virtual environment, allowing manufacturers to efficiently and cost-effectively build customized products and improve customer experiences.
Previously, physical proximity and inspection was the most effective way to gain insights into the condition of in-service equipment. Digital twin technology has offered an innovative way to gain these insights by virtualizing the actual process/product. This innovation allows companies to create, test, and build equipment in a virtual environment and move into production only if the virtual model meets all the criteria. This reduces waste, optimizes costs, and makes manufacturing more agile, resilient, and efficient. It's no wonder the digital twin market in manufacturing is predicted to reach $48.2 billion by 2026.
Disclaimer: This article is written by Raja V., BPM Expert. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Business Insider India. This article is published by the Insider Studios team. You can reach them at [email protected]
