A Digital Twin is a digital representation of a physical product, system, or process that serves as its virtually identical digital counterpart for practical purposes like integration, monitoring, simulation, testing, and maintenance (a physical twin).
The Digital Twin exists throughout the whole lifecycle (design, operation, manufacture /disposal, and support) of the physical thing it represents and has been intended from its inception to be the fundamental tenet of product lifecycle management.
The Digital Twin can and frequently does exist before its physical counterpart. In the creation phase, one can use a Digital Twin to model and simulate the entire lifecycle of the target entity. It is possible to employ a Digital Twin of an existing entity in real-time and to regularly sync it with the associated physical system.
The creation of Digital Twins is the result of continual attempts to improve product design and engineering. The development of product drawings and engineering requirements has progressed from hand-drawn sketches to computer-aided drafting and design to model-based systems engineering and rigorous connectivity to signal from the physical equivalent.
Purpose of a Digital Twin
Digital Twins can be used by businesses to debug equipment that is far away or beyond their control, such as a spaceship that is traveling outside the atmosphere of our planet.
Digital Twins regularly provide businesses with useful IoT-enabled insights, enabling them to improve their hypotheses about how a certain product or process could function using predictive analytics.
A company can even use a Digital Twin to comprehend the interactions between various systems and precisely trace particular workflows or operations to show where and how they might be improved.
Types of Digital Twins
Digital Twins can be modest representations of particular parts or large-scale analyses of a whole system or ecosystem. Component twins, asset twins, unit twins, and process twins are four of the most prevalent varieties of Digital Twins.
Twin Assets
Asset twins are created when two or more component twins are coupled up to carry out a task or operation. You can analyze how these elements interact with one another and continuously improve them using this kind of Digital Twin.
Twin Processes
The most advanced form is represented by process twins. These “Digital Twins” show how the complete system operates in a manufacturing facility and how interactions among its parts might reduce effectiveness. Using process twins, a company may orchestrate and time events for maximum efficiency.
Unit Twins
Unit twins, also referred to as system twins, are the next step up. This kind of Digital Twin comprises a full working system of assets. Allowing you to comprehend how everything works together and find opportunities to boost performance.
Component Twins
The most basic type of Digital Twin is a component twin, which gives engineers a working example of a functioning component.
Software of Digital Twin
A growing number of sectors are adopting Digital Twins. These sectors utilize specialized software to handle the intricate monitoring necessary to generate Digital Twins. The most well-liked Digital Twin applications include:
- Digital Twin Azure
- Digital Twin Exchange by IBM
- AWS Twin Maker for IoT
Applications Digital Twin
- Power-Generating Apparatus
Digital Twins are incredibly helpful for large engines. Such as locomotive engines, jet engines, and power generation turbines, especially for establishing timelines for routine maintenance.
- Operations in Manufacturing
Considering their purpose to replicate a product’s entire lifecycle. It is not surprising that Digital Twins have proliferated across all stages of manufacturing, guiding goods from design to the final product, and managing all processes in between.
- Medical Services
Digital Twins can use the same kind of sensor-generated data system to profile patients seeking medical care, just as they do for products, tracking various health markers and generating important insights.
- Systematics and Structures
Massive physical constructions like offshore drilling platforms or tall buildings can benefit from the use of Digital Twins, especially during the design process. It helps create the HVAC systems that run within those structures.
Digital Twin Real-Life Examples
Organizations and Companies in the energy industry, government, hospitality industry, and healthcare are already coming up with innovative ways. That will make our work and lives more effective and fulfilling with this developing technology. Here are four current applications of Digital Twin technology in real-world settings.
Carl’s Jr.: A Digital Fast-Food Chain
The parent company of the international fast-food chain Carl’s Jr., CKE Restaurant Holdings, Inc., employed Digital Twin technology to reproduce hundreds of kitchen layouts to identify which one would result in the highest levels of efficiency in its locations. The company went far, outlining each step of the production process to model how it may be enhanced.
Philips: Digital Healthcare
A heart surgeon might thoroughly mimic an operation before performing it on the patient in real life. That will reduce the danger to the patient during complex surgeries.
General Electric: Wind Farm Using Digital Technology
The first-ever digital wind farm was produced by General Electric using Digital Twin software. To be certain they have chosen the finest possible wind turbine design for the company’s actual wind farm. Engineers may test up to 20 alternative turbine configurations using this method. The digital wind farm additionally enables site managers to gather and graphically analyze the site and unit-level data to further maximize performance.
Singapore: Digital City
The city-state of Singapore constructed a virtual version of itself that comprises building and transit models of the entire nation in one of the most extensive uses of the Digital Twin idea to date.
By addressing the rising sea levels that are a major worry there, Singapore’s Digital Twin is already assisting one of the top three smart cities in the world in identifying methods for adapting to climate change.
The nation of Southeast Asia will also make use of Digital Twins to enhance resource management for the national water agency and the introduction of renewable energy options.
In the end, Singapore hopes to develop a central architecture that coordinates data sharing between many Digital Twins so that the government may replicate various facets of local life and run scenarios for various use cases.
Advantages of Digital Twin
Enhanced Client Satisfaction
Delivering customer happiness can be a competitive advantage in a market that is becoming more and more focused on the consumer. Customers want businesses to comprehend their demands, and studies have shown that those who believe they will receive exceptional service will spend more money. Because they gather real-time data about the product, Digital Twins can support use cases like predictive maintenance that increase customer happiness while also facilitating smoother customer service and repair operations and guiding future product developments.
The aerospace and industrial machine, defense and electrical equipment, and pharmaceutical industries all ranked this advantage as their top priority in a recent poll we conducted.
Reduced Time to Market
Companies can get ongoing information about how their products are doing in the field thanks to Digital Twins. They can iterate and enhance products more rapidly and efficiently thanks to these insights.
Using Digital Twins along with digital models and simulation tools, engineers can test a product’s performance before physical prototyping. For pricey products, this significantly reduces time and cost. This benefit provides a competitive advantage given the acceleration of innovation over the previous ten years.
Improve Higher-Quality Products
This benefit grows over time as data from a Digital Twin is obtained. After making initial investments, engineers and designers can leverage generational improvements of a product, based on operational data from several Digital Twins collected in the real world, to direct the development of a new product or version.
The automotive, high-tech, chemical, electrical equipment industrial machine, and medical device industries all place a high focus on this benefit.
Drive and Inform Sustainability Efforts
Increasing sustainability in as many initiatives as possible is an aim that organizations are pursuing more frequently. With Digital Twins, there are opportunities all along the value chain. It could entail changing product ingredients to more environmentally friendly ones, cutting back on waste or carbon emissions during production, or lowering the number of service vehicle rolls.
Digital Twins can offer the data, visibility, and visualization required to enhance performance across many sustainability-related parameters when incorporated into a larger digital transformation strategy.
A business could, for instance, use a plant-wide Digital Twin model to find potential areas for efficiency by merging disparate data models and uncover chances for group improvement. These previously unreachable insights allow the organization to put into action to reduce energy use or develop solutions to increase production capacity without utilizing more resources.
Facilitate New Business Models
If you’re able to consider the possibilities, Digital Twins can occasionally have a side advantage. Drink dispensers made by Celli are used all over the world. They used Digital Twin technology in their dispensers to cut down on product downtime and maintenance expenses.
Boost Performance
The issue of staff retention and turnover affects almost all industries. Every time a knowledgeable employee quits, they nearly invariably take their expertise with them, which puts up a barrier and reduces production. By using a Digital Twin, businesses may remotely monitor and support some of these issues.
Experts located off-site can view operating equipment using systems that make use of Digital Twin technology. Onsite staff is contacted if an issue is found, and augmented reality might be used to walk them through the maintenance process. A service technician already has the knowledge required to complete the repair if AR advice is not provided.
Increase Business Effectiveness
Businesses want to be able to operate more efficiently, but it can be challenging to know where to begin. The insights provided by Digital Twins are essential for achieving such operational efficiencies throughout the value chain. Organizations can combine several data sets to collect real-time data on asset and production performance, which is especially pertinent to handling Digital Twins. They can see possible bottlenecks as well as the effects that various fixes might have on the entire process.
Increase Supply Chain Resilience and Agility
Companies are experiencing supply chain disruptions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion, both of which have highlighted the importance of agility and resilience.
The pursuit of a Digital Twin of the physical end-to-end supply chain is now conceivable thanks to a combination of developing technologies and platforms. With this kind of Digital Twin, businesses can see the lead times in their supply chain and make real-time modifications both internally and with their partners.
Disadvantages of Digital Twin
The following are the disadvantages of Digital Twin:
- Internet access is necessary for technology to succeed.
- The idea of “Digital Twins” is based on 3D CAD models rather than 2D sketches.
- All supply chains will need to have Digital Twins.
- The security is in jeopardy.
- The issues at hand include globalization and contemporary production methods. It will be difficult to manage all of this design data for the Digital Twin among partners and suppliers as the physical product develops.
