Create, Embed, Empower
Digital Twins
what are they?
It is a digital representation of a physical asset that identifies and stores a set of attributes that define that asset’s state.
These may be measured via sensors or other means. The Digital Twin itself resides in the cloud and communicates with the asset. It can show the current or past states of the asset —- and ideally it can point to the future and simulate the future state based on certain assumptions. It also connects with the asset history and the Digital Thread.
You may also hear of the Asset Administration Shell (AAS), which is a standards-based model to allow you to implement the digital twin. I am not sure how wide-spread it is. The initiative Industrie 4.0 has published some standards on this.
The Digital Thread begins with the design of a product and follows the product through every step of its life, from design, to manufacturing, to sale, delivery, maintenance and disposal. It links to every system that it touches during the journey (CAD, PDM, PLM, MES, ERP, CRM, MOM, etc.) and combines the data to provide a complete “history of everything” for the asset.
These may be measured via sensors or other means. The Digital Twin itself resides in the cloud and communicates with the asset. It can show the current or past states of the asset —- and ideally it can point to the future and simulate the future state based on certain assumptions. It also connects with the asset history and the Digital Thread.
You may also hear of the Asset Administration Shell (AAS), which is a standards-based model to allow you to implement the digital twin. I am not sure how wide-spread it is. The initiative Industrie 4.0 has published some standards on this.
The Digital Thread begins with the design of a product and follows the product through every step of its life, from design, to manufacturing, to sale, delivery, maintenance and disposal. It links to every system that it touches during the journey (CAD, PDM, PLM, MES, ERP, CRM, MOM, etc.) and combines the data to provide a complete “history of everything” for the asset.
Fleet Management
By implementing the Digital Twin of every asset in a fleet (could be windparks, could be all BMW cars anywhere in Europe, could be all refrigerators sold anywhere) we gain tremendous advantages. We can not only tell you about every asset, but we can start to make statements about the entire fleet, and we can simulate the entire system’s behaviour into the future. We can provide management dashboards, track metrics to optimise KPIs over time, etc.
What we offer
We analyze the assets, agree on how to model them as a digital twin. Then we provide a cloud-based architecture and implement the back-end. In cooperation with the customer’s product team, we start to pull in the data. Then, based on their requirement, we:
- Provide Digital Twin web interface of every asset
- Provide Management Dashboards of entire Fleet
- Provide specialised views (manufacturing twin, logistics twin, maintenance twin, etc.), which are all just different manifestations of the twin.
- We help to define the digital thread and work with their IT and SIs to realise those parts of it that they regard as critical.
- We offer integration services for manufacturing, logistics and other partners to gain data needed for the full Digital Twin