Learn why digital twin technology is one of the biggest latest business trends and how it can be used in your strategy.
Learn why digital twin technology is one of the hottest new trends in technology.
By bridging the physical world with the digital, digital twin technology has become one of the most talked about technology trends in the business world this past year. Though it’s not a new innovation, digital twin has caught the attention of many companies, mainly due to the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT). Essentially, digital twin is a software built by the fusion of physical engineering, data science, and machine learning. This combination allows digital twin technology to constantly learn and optimize which can lead to reduced asset downtime, improved factory efficiencies, and decrease maintenance costs.
Digital twin is a software that bridges the digital world with physical instruments, systems, or machines by acting as a proxy to the digital world. Over time, this technology accumulates real time data about various components, including status, working conditions, position, and behavior, which it then sends to a cloud-based system where the data is transmitted, processed, and analyzed. The main purpose of digital twins is to collect data to find trends and opportunities that businesses can use to apply to their physical instruments, systems, or machines.
Dynamic Duo: Digital Twin Technology & IoT
Data is the fuel of digital twin software. With data analytics and machine learning, businesses are able to find specific answers that can be used to improve their business. With the growth of IoT as an emerging trend in information technology, digital twin technology has become more applicable for businesses. IoT is essentially a network of physical devices and appliances connected through a collection of software. Digital twin technology has greatly impacted industries such as automotive and home appliances through IoT. For example, appliance leader GE saw great results with digital twin, predicting that their digital thread strategy “…will increase machines and materials connectivity by 400%…”, suggesting their confidence in this emerging tech trend. Through IoT, digital twin technology is able to potentially produce algorithms and machine learnings that can help find trends and behaviors to solve specific problems such as: improving customer experiences and product design, reducing operating costs, and optimizing operations.
Next Steps: Thinking of How to Use Digital Twins in your IoT Strategy
If your business is within the industrial manufacturing industry, digital twin technology may be able to the answer to some of your problems. Before beginning the process of implementing the technology, consider the following:
- What do you want to do? Reflect on the key business objectives to understand if this step is right for your business. If it is, understand what problems/objectives you’re trying to solve or find answers for.
- Can your problems be solved without digital twins? Implementing digital twin technology is very costly due to the needed resources, funds, and data. If the business objectives can be met without it, use those solutions instead.
- Do you have enough data? As stated before, data is the fuel of digital twin technology, meaning that analytics is needed at every stage of the product lifestyle to make improvements. Evaluate your current databases to see if you have enough data to start.
Once you’ve considered all of these, you may then proceed to start to implement your digital twin strategy. Digital twin technology is one of the biggest tech trends of recent. With its many benefits, many manufacturing companies have seen great results.
