The Clock is Ticking for Manufacturers to Embrace Digital Twins for Their Industry 4.0 Journey

Digital twins—the virtual representation of a manufacturing environment and its physical assets, specifications, and data—has proven benefits when applied to manufacturing design, testing, and operations performance enhancement.

The concept has become a vital component for the discrete manufacturing industry, where it is being used as a digital clone of real-life production lines and products to recreate and simulate the physical design and manufacturing landscape. With their advanced 3D, AR-VR components, holograms, use of predictive analytics, and deep simulation capabilities, digital twins are promising manufacturing enterprise leaders non-linear gains not only in in optimizing production lines and operational performance but also in rapid product design, development, prototyping, and testing. Therefore, digital twins have become a mandatory solution to consider for any new-age manufacturing organization.

This report explores the advantages that the digital twin can bring to the manufacturing enterprises, the challenges of its implementation, the importance of ecosystems in the digital twin journey, and how Siemens is enabling its end-users for adopting digital twins.

Digital twin is among the top three technologies that are leveraged in Industry 4.0 engagements

In the recent past, we analyzed Industry 4.0 engagements based on different technology implementation (as shown in Exhibit 1) and found that digital twin adoption had already gained traction. Two technologies, the internet of things (IoT) and manufacturing data analysis (big data and machine learning), have played a significant part in the maturity of digital twin development. To learn more about how IoT and AI applications are shaping digital twin adoption, visit our report, Make Digital Twins Be Your Enterprise’s New Best Friend in an IoT World.

Exhibit 1: Percentage distribution of adoption of different technologies across Industry 4.0 engagements

Source: 350+ Industry 4.0 engagements, The HFS Blueprint Guide to Industry 4.0 Services

The primary use cases of digital twins observed across the Industry 4.0 engagements are

• Improved product design and process improvement through virtual modeling;
• Simulation software for fewer physical tests and validation of manufactured products; and
• Performance analysis by simulating real-life scenarios through digital simulations.

Being part of a robust ecosystem is an important aspect of the digital twin journey

The manufacturing landscape varies widely across the globe in terms of business processes, the technology used, and regulations. Overall, we have observed that the lagging manufacturing enterprises have some technology adoption challenges in common:

• Most of the technology used is legacy systems, which have a high level of customization.So, there is a small scope of data exchange between various business functions such as design, manufacturing, and aftermarket services.
• The organizations have no central data management.The organization’s data is in a silo, and collecting that data is very time-consuming.
• Innovative technology is not available. As IoT, analytics, and AI applications enable digital twin development, the absence of these technologies limits the scope of collecting real-time and accurate data.

These challenges limit the journey of digital twin implementation for small manufacturing enterprises. Sometimes big manufacturing organizations lack digital maturity, resulting in multiple iterations for an accurate digital twin.

A robust ecosystem can expedite the journey of organizational technology maturity across two critical dimensions, technology and talent.

1. Technology: Independent manufacturing software providers such as Siemens and GE have established several digital experience labs for end users. These labs outline digital twin implementation guidelines and pave the way for technology upgrades and business process standardization.
2. Talent: For this digital transformation in the manufacturing landscape, resource capability augmentation is of paramount importance. Manufacturing software providers fulfill the talent gap by providing training to end-user employees so that they can stay updated with the latest industrial technologies.

Manufacturing enterprises need to identify suitable technology partners for their digital twin journey. They can also collaborate with manufacturing IT service providers to enable this technology.

Siemens takes one giant leap in the machine tools industry for Industry 4.0

Siemens is focusing on building digital experience centers that will support machine tool builders, dealers, and educational institutes through knowledge sharing programs, application support, training, and similar initiatives.

In support of this need, Siemens India offers:

• Digital Experience and Application Center (DEX), a full-fledged testing, simulation, and training center for the machine tool industry in Bangalore. The center allows machine tool manufacturers and users to experience the integration of hardware with software solutions, the physical world with the virtual world. End users can have their manufacturing processes optimized from the design stage through to execution and their final product.
• The facility is equipped with machine tool solutions from Siemens and partners. Among the innovative features is a live demonstration of robots with SINUMERIK CNC controllers that act as an interface for the robot for gantry, pick and place, robotic machining, and other applications.
• Machine tool professionals can simulate and co-create efficient machining strategies, from machine design to engineering and commissioning, and improve productivity in real-world conditions using Siemens’ digitalization portfolio.

The Bottom Line: If you miss the digital twin train today, you may not get another chance to get where you’re going

Manufacturing enterprises must embrace the digital twin technologies in the following steps:

• Leverage technology platforms like the Siemens experience center to build your capability.Manufacturing organizations need to build a robust ecosystem that includes manufacturing ISVs and IT service providers for the necessary technology infrastructure development.
• Train your workforce on the digital twin software platform utilizing your partners’ offerings.Enterprises should leverage ISVs’ digital experience and innovation labs to gain an understanding of the business use cases and hands-on technology capability available for their resource development.
• Have a long-term roadmap for transforming your current operational landscape.Developing a digital twin is an important step for the manufacturing enterprises as it streamlines operations, but its implementation is challenging. Enterprises should orchestrate a long-term strategy for the operations landscape modernization.