Industry 4.0 | Digital Twins of Production | Manufacturing
Efficiency.
Optimization.
Impact.
3 elements in which the manufacturing industry should adhere to in the digital age and in an era of responsible–sustainable management.
Digital Twins.
Up till now, as a consultant and designer, I’ve seen Digital Twins in Sustainable Cities in trying to model scenario planning, lead city managers to better and more predictable outcomes, and also to operate municipalities in more efficient ways. It is precisely what I am working on in the early stage venture of Circular Play. However, thanks to learning about the services at SIEMENS from Dr. Daniel Klein , digital twins are not only supporting carbon neutrality for cities, but transforming production and manufacturing — power plants and factories.
Coming from Latin America and the Caribbean, where digital transformation is accelerating particularly during COVID-19, I found Digital Twins in Production to be hopeful in transforming the industry with better carbon management and process improvement.
What is a Digital Twin in SMART Manufacturing?
According to Ozern Tozanli and Maria Jesus Saenz of the MIT Digital Supply Chain Transformation Lab,
“Digital twins are a combination of multiple enabling technologies, such as sensors, cloud computing, AI and advanced analytics, simulation, visualization and augmented reality.”
These multiple enabling technologies support simulations that can improve the performance and outcomes in a physical environment. They oversee internal and external flows in supply chains. Digital twins, according to Tozlani and Saenz, are “active and social tools.”
It fuels collaboration and enables supply chain practitioners to identify pain points of “highly complex and dynamic behavior.” This with an end goal of supporting managers to optimize, make better and more accurate decisions. Below are some enabling components of Digital Twins according to Deloitte (2017).
The Growing Market for Digital Twins in Manufacturing
The market for Digital Twins is expected to reach $48.2 billion USD by 2026. With its ability of predictive analytics, might public private partnerships curate for cities to provide manufacturing sites and factories with these technologies to support lower energy consumption, cost reduction, and waste management?
Collecting Data
Digital twins in manufacturing collect data overtime — they extend insight in product performance, distributing and end-user experience. The data can be used by engineers, managers and data scientists for customization. It’s done through the design of edge processing, communication interfaces, and edge security.
The data infrastructure of the Digital Twins in Manufacturing falls on the following. It is the bread and butter for any factory or power plant hoping to build this infrastructure.
Driving Business Value | Creating Better Forecasts
So why do Digital Twins in production matter? Why are they helpful?
- They can identify pain points or bottlenecks in operations
- They can create optimization in systems in productivity and efficiency
- Digital twins can prototype or test new products
- Digital twins can drive innovation through controlled risk and scenario planning
How to Begin:
- Possess Corporate Imagination
- Map out the Process
- Pilot a Program
- Industrialize the Process
- Scale the Twin
- Monitor and Measure
SMART Manufacturing in Middle Income Countries and the Developing World
The amount of digital infrastructure required is extensive in these operations. These innovations should be an inspiration for rising digital republics that are still advancing creating 5G broadband connectivity and stretching the digital fibre lines across a nation. The outcomes that can be obtained through Digital Twins will not only create cost reductions for factories, but identify other bottlenecks that can lead to more agile and process improved factories. The initial capital investment may be extensive but an initial pilot with the enabling conditions may catalyze the entire production | manufacturing industry.
The time to innovate is now.
References:
American Society of Mechanical Engineers | asme.org/topics-resources/content/7-digital-twin-applications-for-manufacturing