Through the ages, human civilisations have used diagrams, models and annotations to help understand and contextualise some of society’s biggest challenges. Now we are in the digital age, computers have replaced the pencil and paper, 3D modelling has replaced 2D diagrams, and simulation has superseded repeat experiments. However, despite the prevalence of these digital formats, we still mostly work in a disconnected manner – with the virtual world distinct and separate from the real world.
Advisory firm Gartner defines a digital twin as a ‘digital representation of a real-world entity or system’, which comes in the form of a ‘software object or model that mirrors a unique physical object, process, organization, person or other abstraction’.
At high level, a digital twin is a computer-based model of a physical system. For example, Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is a type of digital twin, representing the 3D shape of a physical object. It is straightforward to see the value of being able to use CAD to try out ideas and explore options, before creating a physical prototype.
We consider a virtual twin experience to be much more than just a set of digital copies. A virtual twin experience is digitally based, but it also has a lifecycle, includes representations of behaviour and interactions, and has a history of decisions and variants. A virtual twin experience represents a product or system as it exists now, but also how it was designed, tested and manufactured in the past, and how it could be operated and maintained in the future.
A virtual twin experience typically starts from a 3D model that represents the shape, dimensions and properties of the physical product or system. The next step would be to carry out simulations on the virtual twin, to explore how the product would behave as it is assembled, operated or subjected to extreme events. The simulations help to optimise and validate the design, materials and production processes; and the decisions that are taken can be captured and linked to the virtual twin, providing traceability through the lifecycle of the real product.
This could be considered as the ‘as-designed’ virtual twin experience, but the value extends much further after the product is manufactured.
As the real product goes through its lifecycle, new sources of data are added to the virtual twin, such as operational data from sensors, measurements of performance, and maintenance records. The virtual twin retains that information, combined with the original requirements, design decisions and simulation results. As the real product goes through its lifecycle, so too does the virtual twin, thus becoming its own lifecycle, the twin of the ‘as-made’ and ‘as-used’ product.
In this way, the virtual twin is both the digital replica of the product itself and of its history and evolution. Furthermore, virtual twins do not exist in isolation, but can be made to interact with each other, creating virtual twins of systems and environments. For example, a virtual twin of a shampoo bottle can be put through its virtual production line, into virtual packages and through virtual shipment, visualised on a virtual shelf and ultimately used by a virtual consumer.
By combining information from both virtual and real worlds in the form of a virtual twin, organisations are able to:
Benefit 01
Improve Efficiency and Productivity
In 2017, Forbes predicted that using virtual twin technology could improve the speed of critical processes by thirty percent.
Benefit 02
Design Better Products
Information generated during the design or usage of a product is fed back into the design process, be it through a process of updates, or as the next generation of the product; this dynamic nature of the virtual twin enables the voice of the customer to have influence at an early stage.
Benefit 03
Improve Quality
Implementing virtual twins can improve the quality of the solutions to today’s most complex problems; NASA used the precursor to virtual twin technology in 1970 to rescue the Apollo 13 mission and to solve the issue of operating, maintaining and repairing systems in remote outer-space.
Benefit 04
Improve Business Resilience
Now more than ever, it is imperative that businesses understand the limitations of their product or asset. Virtual twins enable a better understanding of the exposure to risk, and the ability to simulate ‘What-If’ scenarios to plan and prepare for the unexpected events of tomorrow.
Benefit 05
Create New Business Models
Virtual twins have enabled businesses to actively explore more options and increase innovation; engine manufacturers have been able to focus on ‘power by the hour’ business models, which allow the manufacturer to increase profitability through increasing reliability.
Benefit 06
Enable Sustainable Innovation
Through efficiency gains, virtual twins help reduce waste and energy consumption. This results in more sustainable practices for companies and leads to the satisfaction of investors and consumers, who are increasingly focusing on sustainability as part of companies’ strategies.
The benefits of leveraging this virtual twin experience are not reserved for large OEMs and highly specialised technology companies. Dassault Systèmes continues to support a broad range of clients in exploring the virtual world, across all major market sectors. Below are four examples, featuring companies from the manufacturing, consumer goods, construction and aerospace industries.
In each of these cases, the ‘objects’ in the real world will evolve through their development and their interaction with their environment. Our capabilities allow our clients to develop the virtual twin experience so that it too follows it’s own lifecycle. These virtual twin experiences are mirroring reality, for the product itself, and for the business that makes the product and the consumers who use it.
Through long-term engagements with the consumer goods industry, Dassault Systèmes has developed a deep appreciation for the importance of developing sustainable products that excite consumers, while conforming to the constraints of mass manufacturing, in an environment of intense margin pressure.
One of the clients Dassault Systèmes worked with had large amounts of consumer data. Mined properly, this data provided powerful insight into exactly what the customer wanted from the product experience, enabling the company to begin work on new product development. However, it became apparent that by following consumer insight alone, they had designed a product that would be difficult to produce at scale and at the required price point.
Despite significant effort working to satisfy the constraints through minor modifications and design iterations, the company was unable to solve the issue. And in this industry, speed to market is critical.
After Dassault Systèmes joined the project, it became clear that although the company had developed an initial virtual twin of the product, its value was not being fully exploited. By running a series of simulated experiments on the key attributes of the virtual twin experience, Dassault Systèmes was able to identify a set of optimized designs that were in line with both the consumer data and the cost constraints established for the project. The systematic ‘design-of-experiments’ approach on the virtual twin experience took a matter of days to complete, compared to the weeks of trial and error that had gone before.
Increasing numbers of construction companies are leveraging the power of a virtual twin experience to enhance the design and construction phases of their facilities, while meeting the rapidly changing demands on infrastructure assets. However, in order to maximize the value of their investment, these companies need to ensure they are also leveraging these virtual twins in the later phases of their projects.
Working with organisations delivering large capital projects, it became apparent to the Dassault Systèmes team that some of the most costly problems appear only once construction stops and commissioning begins. One client, like many in the construction sector, traditionally performed commissioning with clipboards and a paper list of parts. Manually executing the commissioning phase in this way takes a considerable amount of time and so meeting aggressive project timescales can be achieved only by increasing the number of staff.
By leveraging the virtual twin experience, Dassault Systèmes and the construction company were able to generate digital commissioning procedures based on the virtual twin model. The commissioning engineers were able to update the virtual twin in real time with onsite data, using mobile access via tablets.
The client was able to improve on-site collaboration and to de-risk the project.
No manufacturer wants to deploy equipment on its factory floor only to discover inefficiencies or the potential for worker injury. Factory setups are costly, and the most expensive time to fix design errors is after built-out systems physically exist.
One client, a company specialising in industrial automation process technology, wanted to proactively address this issue. They needed a way to optimize robotic work cell designs to better meet customer demands for equipment and systems that enable a competitive edge and production continuity. As a means to achieve this, and for their own competitiveness, the company understood the need for digital simulation prior to the deployment of customers’ assembly lines.
Leveraging the virtual twin experience, the company was able to simulate products, processes, and factory operations for optimized robot movements, plant layout, material flow, and ergonomics. This has enabled them to scale from building robotic cells consisting of 1 to 2 robots, to now simulating every robot. On top of that, they can understand every robot, process, and piece of machinery before it is installed, for much larger and complex assembly lines. As a result, the company has reduced tooling-related issues and rework by up to 90 percent and programming time on the floor by up to 75 percent—delivering on-time, on-budget solutions while enhancing customers’ business competitiveness.
Aircraft propulsion systems are some of the most complex machines operating today, deploying a wide range of highly advanced technologies in a safety critical environment.
With thousands of aircraft operations every day, it is clearly inefficient to wait for an aircraft to be available on the ground before carrying out maintenance checks. Instead, the leading engine manufacturers use sensors on the engines to collect data while in flight, relaying a wide range of operational parameters to ground-based centres, where the data is continually assessed. This is in essence a live virtual twin experience of the flying engine and when combined with simulation capabilities that can carry out what-if studies based on the latest condition data the twin becomes a predictive maintenance tool.
In the time before the aircraft next lands, the engine team could identify sensor data that is beyond set limits, run simulations to assess potential risk and time before failure, and set out the ideal maintenance procedure, including organising delivery of spare parts and the availability of the people to install them. And to increase the value of the virtual twin experience even further, companies are adding the latest in machine learning models to make advanced predictions for maintenance schedules that are beyond what can be achieved through the most rigorous manual inspection.
The intent of the virtual twin approach is to get as close as possible to reality; however, the significant value of the twin comes from the fact that the virtual world is not hampered by many of the constraints of the real world.
Tests and experiments that would be impossible to conduct in reality, for ethical, financial or safety reasons, are quite feasible in the virtual world. A good example of this is the use of virtual twin experiences in medicine. A project led by Dassault Systèmes developed a validated virtual model of a human heart, allowing clinicians to investigate the causes of particular conditions and to experiment on potential interventions, without any risk to the patient. This initiative demonstrates the potential for virtual twin experiences to enable highly personalised medicine, fundamentally changing the way healthcare is delivered in the future.
The virtual twin experience has the capacity to change the way products are designed, the way services are delivered and the way we live our lives.
While discussing virtual twin experiences with large and small organisations we tend to get drawn into conversations around advanced statistical models, and the ability to leverage “Big Data”.
While these tools add significant value to organisations, they often oversimplify the product that they are attempting to represent. Typically, some of the biggest challenges that our customers face, include:
Whilst we do not pretend to have all of the answers on these topics, we build up more experience every day as we collaborate with our partners to secure the outcomes our customers deserve.
Please join the conversation and share your thoughts on these challenges with us at ENorth.Enquiries@3ds.com.