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- editor@nextfirst
- September 12, 2023
Global manufacturing is turning digital at long last. After all, in the age of Industry 4.0, digital technologies have demonstrated the potential to deliver immense business value. Manufacturing companies are now keen to automate manual processes to drive efficiency.
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.