Digital Twinning: The Future of Manufacturing?

Digital Twinning: The Future of Manufacturing?

By Terri
Hiskey, Vice President Product Marketing, Manufacturing at Epicor Software

Today, the most innovative manufacturing
businesses are often the ones taking advantage of the new wave of industry-transforming
technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, robotics, and Artificial
Intelligence (AI). Industry 4.0, as these trends have commonly become known, is
the next phase of the digitisation of the manufacturing sector and a term
called ‘digital twinning’ is gaining in popularity.

The concept of digital twinning has gained momentum
in recent years as more manufacturers invest in smart machines that are
transforming the industrial landscape. Defined as the mapping of a physical
asset to a digital platform, digital twinning is enabling manufacturers to
gather data from sensors on their machines to find out how they are performing,
in real-time.

Earlier in the year, Gartner named digital
twinning as number five in its top
10 strategic technology trends for 2017. It
predicts that within three to five years, billions of things will be
represented by digital twins and a recent
Research and Markets report suggests that up to 85 per cent of all IoT Platforms will contain some
form of digital twinning capability by 2022. Furthermore, this survey found that 75 per cent of
executives across a broad spectrum of industry verticals plan to incorporate
them within their operations by 2020.

So why should manufacturers be taking digital
twinning seriously? It is because when we start connecting IoT endpoints,
devices and physical assets to data sensing and gathering systems, the data
extracted can be turned into valuable insights and ultimately optimise and
automate processes. Consequently, the potential for digital twinning to
positively impact business outcomes are almost endless.

Bridging
the physical-digital divide

Digital twins are possible for all kinds of
physical products—from microchips to luxury cars. In fact, one industry that
has trail blazed the use of the technology is Formula 1. Here, crucial,
race-winning insight can be gained from a digital twin running exactly the same
race as the physical car, taking into account factors such as road conditions,
weather, and temperature. 

For manufacturers, digital twins are used to
boost efficiency and productivity by enabling companies to monitor the
construction of plants, manage assets, and to test its final products.

Take predictive maintenance, for example. This
is where sensors continuously collect machine condition data which can be used
to calculate component wear rates, production loads and life spans. With
digital twinning, the machine operator is able to determine the optimal time
for maintenance, avoiding the cost both of major repairs and premature or
unnecessary maintenance.

The potential savings from digital twins are
enormous, especially when it comes to prototyping. With conventional product
development, physical prototypes tend not to be built until very late in the
process. Having twinned a device, a digital prototype can be used to run
simulations in virtual reality that can be modified at any time at minimal cost
through the entirety of the production process. This means that manufacturers
are then able to not only reduce development time and costs, but to also move
into the area of being able to predict failure scenarios and potential downtime—an
insight that provides a significant and valuable step forward to increasing
efficiencies in product development.

Gaining
real insight

By creating a virtual representation of each
physical device, manufacturers suddenly have a wealth of data on production
processes and performance at their fingertips. But what can they do with all
this information?

Software platforms are available that collect
data directly from equipment and operators on the shop floor in real time. This
information is presented on touch-screen technology which arms operators and
managers with a 360 degree picture of the what, why and when of downtime, cycle
time, quality, and scrap.

From on-the-fly production schedule changes, to
daily operations meetings, to management dashboards and reports, manufacturing
execution systems (MES) give everyone in the plant, and throughout the business,
an opportunity to take action to improve manufacturing performance. These
systems can also be linked with enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to
connect the entire business to the actual manufacturing process.

Digital
twinning in action

We’re seeing innovative new ways in which the
information derived from digital twinning is utilised in different businesses
around the world, and ‘immersive analytics’ has become a popular term to
describe the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and other new
display technologies to support analytical reasoning of sensor data.

Donning wearable technology such as smart
glasses, manufacturing engineers can enter a new world of visualising data
relating to a specific product or task. For example, a maintenance team
arriving at a building can gain access to an augmented reality view of hidden
systems (for instance equipment behind a wall) to see what is there as well as
information and its status.  With a touch
of a button, the worker is linked to real time information about the object
such as specs and usage data, ownership, maintenance history and performance.

Though AR use is growing, it’s still in the
early phases of awareness and adoption. But for early adopters, AR has helped
drive operational efficiency by reducing production downtime, identifying
problems quickly, and keeping processes moving.

With so many benefits for manufacturers it is
clear that the digital twin is here to stay. In a world where new products need
to reach the market in ever-faster cycles and on demand, companies cannot
afford to miss out on the power of digitalisation to improve efficiency,
quality and productivity. Making these savings on time and money will not only
streamline business in the short term but enable manufacturers to refocus that
time and money into preparing for growth.

The technology offers manufacturers a chance to
be ahead of their machinery and anticipate and prepare for costly downtime. Those
who realise the value in investing in digital twinning now will be able to work
smarter and harder in the future, however, those who are unwilling to commit to
investment are at risk of falling behind more efficiency driven competitors. By
bridging the gap between the physical and digital world, the future of manufacturing
is already here.