Among the emerging technologies in this space, digital twins play a critical role in driving automation in manufacturing operations. A recent survey found that 71% of companies have already leveraged digital twins technology. About 58% of the respondents ranked the use of digital twins as “very important.” Behind automotive and heavy equipment, the manufacturing sector was the third-most likely industry to use this technology.

What Are Digital Twins in Manufacturing?

As the name suggests, a digital twin is essentially a digital “replica” of any process, system, or physical asset. In manufacturing, a digital twin serves as a “virtual representation” of any manufacturing asset, production and packaging line, or end product. The idea of such visual representation is to illustrate a physical object accurately.

Effectively, digital twins enable manufacturers to merge the physical and digital worlds. With this technology, manufacturers can produce a complete digital footprint of their product lifecycle — from design to the end-of-life.

But why exactly are digital twins important in modern manufacturing and packaging operations?

For a start, companies can unlock business opportunities by accelerating their go-to-market (GTM) strategy through faster product releases. Digital twins can help manufacturers identify inefficiencies in their manual or automated packaging process. This helps them resolve any bottlenecks and predict process outcomes more accurately. In effect, using digital twins allows these companies to fail virtually first so they can succeed in real life on the factory floor.

How Are Digital Twins Driving Automation in Manufacturing?
Smart manufacturing relies heavily on manufacturing data extracted from factories, supply chains, and manufacturing equipment. With virtual models, digital twin technology provides manufacturers with real-time data from their operations.

Thanks to these real-time data insights, manufacturers can make faster decisions and avoid delays associated with manufacturing processes (including product design, development, and packaging).

Digital twins also help drive automation to improve production efficiency. Using digital twin technology, production teams can continuously monitor their existing processes and systems. If they are not performing at optimum efficiency, manufacturers can identify areas of improvement and take measures to proactively address anomalies and work towards improving the workflows.

Notably, manufacturers can leverage digital twin technology by integrating it with IoT-enabled devices and systems. In this IoT environment, machine data is directly fed into integrated digital twin and business intelligence solutions.

As more IoT sensors collect real-time data from manufacturing equipment, a digital twin (for each machine) can help optimize maintenance costs and resources. This technology is a cost-effective addition to an environment of optimized machines and processes.

Gartner outlines that by “combining the twin data with business rules, optimization algorithms or other prescriptive analytics technologies, digital twins can support human decisions or even automate decision making.”

Roy Schulte of Gartner points out that “traditional approaches waste both time and resources because of overlapping and redundant data.” Hence, it’s no surprise that 24% of companies that had implemented (or were planning to implement) IoT solutions in the pre-COVID era were already using digital twins. This percentage would be even higher today, given the increasing sophistication of the technology.

In addition to production, manufacturers are deploying digital twins in areas like supply chains, operations, and quality management. Through “virtual” simulation & testing, manufacturers are minimizing supply chain and operational disruptions.

Besides, with digital twins, manufacturers can now customize their products and packaging for individual customers. This reduces prototyping costs and helps in improving the customer experience.

Future of Digital Twins in Manufacturing
Enabled by digital twins, supply chains of the future can create more resilient, efficient, and environmentally sustainable global trades. Supply chain companies will have real-time visibility into shipments and improve decision-making through “What-If” scenarios.

Similarly, we could witness an increased integration of digital twin technology into edge computing. This enables real-time data analytics and decision-making, by which manufacturers can respond quickly to changing market conditions. This integration is critical in the areas of industrial automation, smart cities, and autonomous vehicles.

Going ahead, digital twins can enable innovative business models like the “Product-as-a-Service” model. Digital twin technology, along with predictive analytics, can accelerate product servicing and maintenance. This directly translates into benefits like lower downtime and maintenance costs.

Overall, digital twins are bringing a fundamental change to existing business models in manufacturing. Considering the asset-intensive nature of manufacturing settings, digital twins can certainly disrupt existing models, and for all the right reasons.

With the increasing cognitive sophistication, digital twin technology is here to stay. With their enhanced capabilities, digital twins will continue generating real-time insights needed for better asset management and process optimization.

Wrapping Up
Digital twins are projected to reach a market value of $110.1 billion by 2028. Using this technology, smart manufacturers can streamline their shopfloor and production facilities for improved efficiency.

Over the years, NextFirst has delivered a variety of automation solutions for its customers in the manufacturing domain. Using state-of-the-art technology, we design engineering solutions in line with Industry 4.0 requirements. Interested in learning more about how we can help? Get in touch with us today.

At a time when manufacturing companies are under immense pressure to meet customer demands, a shortage of labor can impede the company’s growth. That’s why packaging automation is so helpful.

Packaging automation helps in:

• Accelerating the packaging speed 
• Reducing errors by catching nearly 100% of errors and improving the quality of packaging 
• Saving manual intervention and enabling the workforce to focus on tasks requiring specialized skills

While packaging automation improves productivity and saves cost and time, it can sometimes fail to deliver the expected value. A single issue in packaging automation can delay or bring operations to a standstill.

Let’s find out why that’s the case and what manufacturing companies can do to optimize the value of packaging automation.

1.  Increasing Operational Costs
   Automation is often seen as a solution to reduce labor costs and accelerate the packaging process. However, the high cost of automation can outweigh the savings in labor costs, making it a less viable option. Additionally, automation can lead to increased energy costs as automated machines consume more energy than manual labor.Besides these direct costs, there are also indirect costs associated with automation. These include the cost of training employees on how to use automation and the cost of downtime when automation is not working properly.Manufacturing companies must do a thorough cost-benefit analysis to determine if automation will save operational costs and generate revenue. They must opt for automation only if the cost justifies the value it delivers.
2. Not Factoring in Overall Equipment EffectivenessOverall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) measures the packaging equipment’s performance. It measures how long the equipment is available to run, the speed and output of the equipment when it’s running, and the number of defective products it produces.By optimizing OEE, manufacturing companies can run the packaging lines more efficiently, produce more products, and reduce waste. It can also significantly increase the company’s profits. Ignoring OEE could result in financial losses and lost opportunities to generate more revenue due to poor equipment performance and availability and higher maintenance costs.
3. High Maintenance CostAccording to research by PMMI, 26.3% of the instances of machine downtime occur due to general wear and tear, 22.1% due to product changeover, and 21.1% due to operator errors.The purpose of using packaging automation is to accelerate the packaging process and meet the client’s demands. However, unexpected downtime can delay the packaging process and deliveries. Moreover, a lack of preventive maintenance and unplanned downtime could increase the maintenance cost and impact the company’s bottom line due to interruptions in business continuity.Frequent preventative maintenance is, therefore, the only way to reduce wear and tear and maintain the machine’s health.
4. Using a One-Size-Fits-All Packaging ApproachThere’s no doubt that packaging automation can improve the productivity and quality of the overall packaging process. Every machinery, from conveyors to palletizing robots, streamlines and accelerates the packaging speed. While various packaging automation tools are available, a one-size-fits-all automation approach will not work for every manufacturing company.For example, a palletizing robot that places and stacks goods onto a pallet may be ideal for large manufacturing units. Similarly, they can invest in multi-disciplinary robots to perform various steps simultaneously. However, smaller manufacturing companies may lack the infrastructure or investment capabilities to use advanced automation machinery. This could prevent them from making the most of automation capabilities.
5. Lack of IntegrationsAutomating packaging operations faces a challenge due to the lack of integration between picking, packing, and shipping automation solutions. This can cause bottlenecks and hinder companies from fully benefiting from automation.Integration is crucial for successful packaging automation projects. It ensures seamless communication, increases efficiency, and improves flexibility. By getting the integration right, companies can reduce bottlenecks and fully realize the benefits of automation.

How To Optimize the Value of Packaging Automation

The benefits of packaging automation are numerous, but as we saw, not prioritizing preventive maintenance, using the wrong packaging automation products, or not doing a thorough cost-benefit analysis before automation can render packaging automation useless. It could also lead to productivity loss and unnecessary complexities.

Therefore, companies must define the automation’s scope, re-engineer the existing processes to incorporate automation seamlessly, and analyze the benefits of packaging automation before opting for it.

But more importantly, manufacturing companies must choose the right products to make packaging automation successful. A wrong packaging automation product that does not meet the objective, goes over budget, or is not designed for specific areas can lead the company to losses.

At NextFirst, we understand the significance of packaging automation. That’s why we have designed a fit-for-purpose product suite that improves the performance of your packaging, assembling, testing, and inspecting systems. It can improve speed and productivity without disrupting operations.

Manufacturing companies can change and configure product specifications to meet specific packaging needs for a wide range of products. For example, a case label applicator can be used to apply labels on cases for product identification and traceability. An End of Arm Tooling (EOAT) can be used to fold and form a box from a non-folded carton blank.

Contact us to know which automation tools can automate your packaging process and deliver value. We will be happy to help.

3PLs must invest in existing relationships while taking on new clients to survive an intensely competitive market as the industry grows. However, this is becoming increasingly challenging without the aid of technology. Historically, 3PLs have desisted from significant technology investments. 

Why then aren’t 3PLs implementing more automation technologies for their operations?

The primary obstacle is the lack of long-term visibility and predictability. Most 3PL contracts last for a year or two, making it easy for customers to switch to a provider that better suits their needs. Moreover, customers can switch the items sent to 3PLs based on their requirements – there is no guarantee of a steady supply of the same items. As a result, it is difficult to develop good estimates for the number of products the 3PLs will distribute. It is also not easy to justify investing in automation solutions for a product or even a customer that may not be available in the near future.

Another issue that poses challenges for automation is that clients have pre-existing order processing platforms and insist that the 3PLs adopt them. This expectation makes it difficult for the 3PLs to deviate from a customer-specific system to a more standardized one. Moreover, it isn’t feasible to automate procedures for individual customers – automation is usually planned across a group of customers to distribute costs.

Despite these real challenges, the gap between client expectations and 3PL outputs continues to grow. At the same time, 3PLs are under intense pressure to compete effectively in a low-margin market. 

Making a case for automation 

Automating operations can potentially ease some of the challenges but is not an easy decision to make. However, 3PLs must consider automation on a case-to-case basis as its gains are too significant to ignore. So, how should 3PLs decide if the investment is worth it?

Repeatable processes – if your center handles multiple clients and has set up customized processes for them, check if the smaller processes are repeatable. If yes, automation makes sense, especially flexible solutions that can be configured for different use cases easily. Some examples of automating repeatable processes include handling of items using conveyors, robotic grippers and picking robots. 

Dedicated Facility: When a 3PL plans a new warehouse, check if the center will be for a single material handling procedure across clients or if it caters to a customer that will consume 90 percent of the space and volume. If yes, then large-scale automation is justified. For instance, in a warehouse for grocery firms and supermarkets, faster fresh food delivery is essential for customers. Therefore, automation solutions that ensure high throughput and are cold-room ready make sense in this context. 

3PLs considering automation must evaluate the feasibility using these two aspects and arrive at a decision that will be fruitful for their business as well as its customers. 

Keeping with its ambitious market expansion plans, NextFirst is excited to announce its entry into the European market. Arvind Vasu, an industry veteran, will support us as Business Development Director, Europe. Arvind’s extensive experience in automation and robotics and his understanding of the European market will significantly add to this venture. We welcome Arvind to the NextFirst team and look forward to his many successes.