Digital Twins in the Business Sector
Published on : Wednesday 02-02-2022
The digital twin technology and its incredible scope in the business sector.
The digital twin counterparts of products are trending in the technical realm recently. Being part of Industry 4.0, the digital twin technology involves creating virtual replicas of an object or a process. To enable digital print, sensors are placed strategically to collect data from the physical process. These data are then fed to the digital twin in real-time, followed by data processing through AI. Once this is done, you can run simulations on product behaviours, analyse the working mechanism of the object or process effectively.
As the online data suggests, around thirteen per cent of the IoT companies have successfully employed digital twins in their projects and sixty per cent of the remaining companies are in the process of adopting this innovative technology.
Digital twins – how to get started?
To successfully generate a digital twin, it is necessary to transfer real-time data of the physical object or the process to its virtual equivalent.
To ensure flawless data transfer, the sensors and devices have to be part of a cloud-based system that collects data in real-time from the physical environment. Once the data is generated, it will be processed effectively. The data processing is then followed by generating the virtual image or the digital twin of the process or the object.
Using up-to-date data from the sensors, the digital twin offers an impeccable imitation of the physical process, which helps in scaling the production quality and the product performance.
Benefits of implementing digital twins for your business
The digital twin is a state-of-the-art Industry 4.0 tool that aids in simulating product/process behaviours for improved efficiency and performance. From remote monitoring to enhancing operational productivity, the scope of this revolutionary technology is many. Take a peek at the numerous benefits of employing digital twins in your business:
1. Employing virtual replicas ensures consistent and enhanced product performance by foreseeing future defects and taking necessary corrective measures beforehand
2. The real-time info from the physical environment helps in optimising the manufacturing process
3. By streamlining the production process, it is possible to avoid unnecessary downtime
4. Crafting a simulation of the physical process, to an extent, help to avoid possible accidents in the production area
5. Preventive maintenance using digital twins saves you money
6. Since the digital twin could be accessed from anywhere, you can easily monitor system performance remotely, from your comfort.
The scope of digital twin technology
The digital twin technology has a wide scope in many sectors. Some of the common applications of this tech are explained below.
Automotive Industry: Creating simulations allows the industry to predict the behaviour of a product and easily navigate the final production process. You can avoid production bottlenecks and scale efficiency and reduce development costs with digital twins. Optimising the operation of the vehicle will help you offer quality products to your customers.
Manufacturing Sector: You can use digital twin technology to create simulations of step-by-step processes involved in manufacturing. This is especially useful when designing a product or during its manufacturing process. The real-time data fed to the virtual replica will help to completely optimise the manufacturing process. This technology can be used to predict the working of a product or a process right after its ideation, allowing businesses to comprehend future errors and take preventive actions as required.
Energy Sector: The digital representation of the power generation sector will help in optimising all of its constituent processes and scale efficiency tremendously. In general, the digital twin technology can be used to optimise the operations of power plants, reduce the cost of deploying new ones, find out energy requirements, and finally improve the overall decision-making process in this sector.
Logistics Sector: Using digital twin tech in the logistics sector is helpful in streamlining every aspect of the decision-making process. By building a simulation of materials and people, you can comprehend possible scenarios in the logistics process and take the best course of action.
Tips to follow before deploying digital twins
1. Strictly assess and update your security protocols before adopting the digital twin technology. The digital twins are prone to collect huge amounts of data from different integration endpoints, so it is necessary to avoid any type of security vulnerabilities
2. Keep an eye on your data encryption, security checks, access privileges, and device vulnerability
3. Make sure to manage the quality of the data collected by the sensors (which is then transferred to the virtual model) and optimise any gaps in the data streams, and
4. Make sure your employees are all equipped to work with digital twin models.
The digital twin technology is a revolutionary innovation that will scale the technical achievements in the coming future. This technology has enabled easier optimisation of products and processes and prompts testing of the latest technologies using digital replicas. With increased adoption rates in the digital twin sphere, it is only a matter of time before the entire business sector achieves radical transformation.
Article Courtesy: NASSCOM Community – an open knowledge sharing platform for the Indian technology industry:
https://community.nasscom.in/communities/digital-transformation/digital-twin-technology-and-its-incredible-scope-business-sector
(The article is credited to Pinmicro India Pvt Ltd. Pinmicro is a Japanese-based, leading provider of location intelligence solutions)
