A digital twin is a simulation or replica of physical world elements. These elements include people, processes, or systems that can be modelled and gauged for their response to a situation.
Digital twin technologies help organizations to use insights from these models to take more informed decisions. IoT remains the bedrock for enhanced adoption of digital twin technology.
Digital twin will directly impact various industries. It is changing the way we work by ensuring that we have more insights, and our decisions are more driven by data.
By understanding the business application landscape and their value to business, organizations can embark on the journey to implement digital twins and estimate the potential in terms of revenue enhancement, wastage reduction, cost optimization etc. that can be driven by leveraging this technology.
Let us delve into a few industries wherein digital twin applications are accelerating and empowering business.
Manufacturing
Manufacturing is a capital-intensive industry. It uses expensive machines. The time, cost, and efforts towards managing the entire supply chain from the raw material to the final product stage is very high. Digital twin technology and applications help the industry in areas such as development of the most viable product, catering to customized requirements, enhancement of performance across the supply chain and production facilities and better predication and scheduling of maintenance related activities.
Digital twin technology can enable a manufacturing company to test the product from various perspectives, make alterations in terms of design, build etc., and arrive at a much more feasible product. The approach can enable them to reduce wastage, enhance efficiency, ensure faster production and go-to-market and augment margins.
The technology also enables the managers in the production line to detect defective material early on and ensure less wastage in the production cycle. This makes the overall supply chain efficient and enhances profits. Equipped with the data and analytics capabilities, digital twin technologies can enable companies to predict breakdowns or downtimes. It can also enable the technical team to take the mandatory preventive measures, reduce downtime and enhance utilization across production facilities.
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Also Read: 4 Ways in which Managed IT Services can benefit the Manufacturing Industry
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Airlines
The digital twin technology is immensely beneficial to the airline sector. They can leverage this technology to create a digital twin of its workflow process. This can help airline managers to discover the flaws in the overall process with respect to baggage handling, ticketing, etc. and use the insights to increase productivity of the crew and staff and also help to enhance the turnaround time of flights – a very important metric for airlines.
Digital twin technology can also simulate parts of the aircraft including the engine and track its vital parameters to create stress scenarios. This can enable the airline crew to be prepared in case a response to such a scenario is required.
Automobile and Autonomous Cars
Automobile companies use digital twin technologies to create a replica of the product they want to design, way before they start designing the product. They can use the technology to identify how the vehicle responds to various scenarios such as traffic, fire in the car, etc. It can also help the organization to create a simulation of a connected vehicle and identify loopholes in management of autonomous or self-driving vehicles thereby ensuring prevention of safety issues and damages.
Healthcare
Healthcare providers can leverage digital twin technologies to enhance efficiency of operations and augment personalized care to patients. By creating a digital twin for the workflow processes across the operations in a hospital, the hospital management can plan shifts, staffing, resources etc. much better thereby enhancing operational efficiency, saving costs, and enhancing profits. They can also use the digital twin technology to run patient characteristics, lifestyle traits, food habits etc. through a simulation and create the best personalized care models for patients.
There are many other industries where digital twin technologies are playing a key role. The clear benefits of using it would be to enhance operational efficiency by reducing wastages, input and operational costs, human resource efficiency enhancements, etc. to augment both revenues and margins. The one- time investment in building a digital twin technology can create value across the production and supply chain and empower the organization with efficiencies and savings – all along the way.
