When the future factory meets digital twin

Release time：2021-07-20 14:49viewed：times

When the future factory meets digital twin

What are digital factories and how do they relate to digital twinning? The connections are tighter than we think. In today's longce -class, we will take you closer to digital factory and digital twin.

Digital factory
The digitization of manufacturing -- the digital factory -- is the promise to solve the challenges and bottlenecks of modern manufacturing, and it shoulders the mission of reconfiguring the production network into a highly adaptive network that can face the future.

What is a digital factory? According to the VDI4499 standard of the German Society of Engineers, the digital factory includes digital models, methods and tools (including simulation and 3D visualization) in continuous data management systems. The goal of the digital factory is to comprehensively plan, evaluate and continuously improve the structure, process and resources of the factory with the product as the core.

A fully functional digital factory requires the same personnel as a normal factory, namely operations managers, field managers, engineers, and operators. However, their daily tasks are tailored to data based on a single environment and specific needs.

Digital twin
For now, let's focus on the aforementioned keywords, industrial simulation and 3D visualization; Thanks to major advances in digital twinning, one of the most exciting developments in recent years. Manufacturing is transitioning from static CAD models and 2D floor plans to fully interactive 3D models.

The definition of digital twin provided by Gartner Research in the "Manufacturing IT Development Cycle 2019" is as follows:
Definition of digital twin
"A digital twin is a virtual representation of an entity, such as an asset, a person, or a process, whose goal is to support the growing needs of a company's business. [...]. The necessary elements to meet the business goals include models, data, one-to-one correlation, and real-time monitoring, and the optional elements include analysis, control, and simulation."

The main characteristic of digital twinning is a symbiotic relationship between physical objects and virtual objects. Data exchange between the two is bilateral and automatic. Any change in the characteristics of the physical object will be directly reflected in the digital twinning and vice versa. Such capabilities are of great value as part of a continuous data management system.

Related terms often associated with digital twinning include digital copy and digital shadow, but there are subtle differences between them.

Digital copy: Like digital twinning, it is a representation of an existing object in digital form, but the key difference is the connectivity between the two. Modified physical objects are not reflected in the digital copy (and vice versa).

Digital Shadow: Connections are one-sided, specifically one-way automatic data exchange, in which physical objects reflect changes in virtual objects rather than in the other direction.

There are three major categories of digital twinning
The definition of digital twin paints a bright picture of the future. Now let's take it a step further and talk about digital twinning from the perspective of a digital factory. PwC presented three different types of digital twin industrial applications at Digital Factory 2020.

Factory digital twinning
The digital twin of the factory helps to plan, design, and build the factory buildings and infrastructure. It can be used to support testing, simulation, and commissioning of building facilities.

Digital twinning of production assets
A digital twin of one or more production assets is used for design, virtual startup, and ongoing operation. The focus is on simulating the operation of an asset, setting and optimizing its key parameters, and enabling concepts such as predictive maintenance or augmented reality.

Product Digital Twinning
The digital twin of a product is a digital representation of the product that connects engineering and product life cycle management (PLM) to plant operations. It is designed as part of the development process to help drive the front-end load in product development by simulating and testing the product in the early process stages.

As far as we are concerned, the two sub-definitions, digital twins in the factory and digital twins in the production assets, are the main problem areas that the Navvis digital factory is trying to address.

Digital twinning of a factory is not limited to a single site. Imagine if the production process at multiple sites around the world were virtualized; This will allow site operations to be visualized at a global strategic level. Factories can build dashboards that present real-time visual data, for example, to identify potential opportunities by comparing different sites and to upgrade their workshops.

Digital twinning, as the feasible solution of digital factory, is the basic element of intellectualization to integrate it into the factory construction.

"Are you ready for the digital factory?"

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