November 28, 2023 Digital Twin Technology’s Role in Manufacturing

From designing to testing to monitoring, digital twin technology is a gamechanger for manufacturers to drive innovation and efficiency.

By Brad Hart, CTO/VP, Product Management, Digital Creation and Planning at Perforce Software

Digital twin software has boomed over the past 20 years since Dr. Michael Grieves originated the concept in 2002 and John Vikers of NASA coined the term ‘digital twin’ in 2010. In fact, the digital twin market is worth $10.1 billion today and is expected to reach $183 billion in revenue by 2031. Just as the name suggests, a digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical, tangible entity. The entity could encompass diverse forms, such as an automobile, a warehouse, an airplane, an urban hub, or even a sports stadium, among other possibilities.

As you may already know, there are three necessary components to effectively use digital twin technology: the physical entity itself, its digital replica, and two-way communication. Engineers use sensors to collect data from the physical entity, which later flows into the digital twin. Consequently, every real-time occurrence experienced by the entity is mirrored within its digital twin counterpart. These sensors also monitor what’s happening in the real entity’s environment, enabling the digital twin to mimic the events occurring to and around it. As time passes and as the digital twin collects more data, it can predict the entity’s behavior effectively.

Many industries—including manufacturing—embrace this technology to digitally replicate physical objects, environments and infrastructures. There are countless ways manufacturers can use digital twins to reap the competitive benefits the technology provides, but it’s critical to understand the challenges to find the best path forward for each intended use case.

Using Digital Twins in Manufacturing

Digital twins have created a major impact in the manufacturing world, making waves to help drive innovation at scale. The creation of digital twins begins with manufacturers collecting physical, manufacturing and operational data to help shape the digital twin model. Once the model is in a good spot to begin analysis, organizations can leverage this solution to help inform decision-makers on product use-cases and efficiency.

System design improvements is a critical area where manufacturers use digital twins—consider all that goes into planning and testing new production lines, for example. Manufacturing teams of all sizes can save time and money with digital twins by testing, finding and solving potential problems before building the actual system in real life. Manufacturers can also apply digital twins to designing new warehouses, which can be planned more easily and effectively. Moreover, automotive manufacturers can conduct safety tests in every scenario imaginable with a vehicle’s digital replica.

The Internet of Things (IoT) and digital twins, especially in manufacturing, go hand in hand to monitor machinery and prevent unplanned maintenance. When paired together, they supply continuous, real-time data emulated in the digital twin, thereby enhancing team communication. IoT-connected devices and physical objects with a digital twin gather information, which teams can incorporate into a comprehensive system view, complete with real-time data. This allows teams to keep track of any outliers or spikes in the data that could result in a problem for the object. However, teams are aware of the problem before it’s too late, ensuring they make data-driven decisions to stop production before a situation worsens.

Common Benefits and Challenges Manufacturers Face with Digital Twins

Manufacturers experience many benefits when they use digital twins. One of those benefits is bringing more visibility to problems with the object or environment, which can help improve communication among the team. More specifically, digital twins can make product testing easier. Since teams don’t have to test a new or updated product on an existing system, manufacturers decrease their risk of miscalculations by testing updated configurations on the digital replica.

However, all technology comes with its challenges. Teams often work in silos, with data residing with specific teams, making it difficult to share large files and multiple iterations of files across the organization. To seamlessly build a digital twin, it’s critical for organizations to create an ecosystem of data and data formats to make file sharing more streamlined. For example, consider the need for a developer to share their computer-aided design (CAD) with a 3D artist who is working on the digital twin design. Without interoperability, the process is slow and tedious, interrupting workflows and creating mismanaged processes.

Additionally, teams could create thousands of files when developing the digital twin, including the company’s proprietary information, making IP security of utmost importance. It’s imperative to have the proper software to protect these files from IP leakages or risk a data breach.

Forging a Resilient Manufacturing Future

Forward-thinking industries and organizations are driving new innovations with the power of digital twins technology. Game engine technology is also bringing real world, and real-time visualization power to digital twins, but without the proper data and infrastructure to support these efforts, the full value of digital twins will remain underutilized and undiscovered. Teams should consider investing in high-performing, enterprise-grade version control systems to secure assets and scale alongside projects. In today’s hybrid work world, version control systems are a great tool to invest in to decrease organizational risk of disruption when it comes to collaborating on and versioning all of their assets.  

Manufacturers are leaning into the functionalities of digital twin visualization technology to remain competitive while building better products for users. From system design improvements to new product testing to asset lifecycle management, any manufacturing-focused industry can find a use for and benefit from this emerging technology.

Brad Hart has more than 20 years of experience in high-tech companies focused on optimizing development pipelines. As the chief technology officer of version control at Perforce, Brad is responsible for the product strategy of the Perforce version control product suite – including Helix Core, Helix4Git, Swarm, and other clients and plugins. He specializes in software engineering process, design, and implementation.

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