Time and resource savings and achieving additional profit are the main reasons for using digital twins and the industrial metaverse in various industries. They are increasingly immersing themselves in the virtual world to work on a new product and improve it without wasting precious time and resources in the real world. The digital world is slowly becoming a place where the most important engineering or creative decisions are made. A digital twin is a virtual counterpart of a product, machine, production line, process, or entire production facility. It is a simulation model that contains all relevant data that can be used for development, optimization, and simulation, based on the simulation or virtual model of an object connected with real-world information, thus reducing the gap between the designed solution and the one actually realized. And, most importantly, it is increasingly being applied in various industries, currently dominating in the automotive sector – it is estimated that last year this sector had a 15 percent share in the use of digital twins.
Scenario Testing
The Director of Digital Industries at Siemens Croatia, Ivana Ilić, says that the application of digital twins is visible in various sectors and industries and gives us an example of their use in the automotive industry. She explains that a digital twin is a product that companies use to simulate vehicle performance and test various scenarios in a virtual environment, i.e., for optimizing industrial processes.
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– In this way, the manufacturer can improve vehicle design and shorten the time needed to develop new models. Similarly, real-time simulation allows customers and/or development engineers to gain insight into the actual state, but virtually. All this enables companies to test and improve products and services before they are made. This also applies to production lines that can be simulated and optimized, resulting in outcomes such as cost reduction and increased productivity, explains Ilić.
Lucija Knežić, head of marketing for the digital department at Peugeot, Citroen, and DS Automobiles. adds that digital twins are also used when a model of only part of an object is needed, such as a battery, engine, or sensor.
– For example, a digital twin will archive the unique history of a car’s operation and the amount of accumulated damage. This allows for specific decisions about that object to be made, improving its features, safety, and user experience, says Knežić, adding that the application of digital twins also includes training artificial intelligence for autonomous driving, designing sales salons, advertising vehicles, and VR configurators for vehicle personalization.
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Various Applications
Let’s not forget about people. Namely, alongside all of the above, using digital twins reduces transportation costs and the adaptation of various potential buyers, engineers, and developers because they can see their machines, production lines, and products in a virtual environment.
– We must not forget another important feature of using this product, which is that, when we sum up all the above, the result is a responsible approach to sustainable business and minimal impact on the environment, adds Ilić.
In addition to examples in the automotive industry, Neuralab’s founder and CEO Krešimir Končić notes that digital twins are increasingly being applied in digital environments. He cites e-commerce as an example.
– For instance, in e-commerce, a user can ‘try on’ war clothing or plan the arrangement of furniture in their virtual apartment without having to go to the store, measure, and search for real products, which facilitates planning, he says.
Team Visualization
Končić states that there are also more examples of digital twins in the virtual representation of real people and notes that they could also be used to visualize an entire team, i.e., avatars that could discuss digital products and test them in one virtual place. However, he claims that he does not see this bringing significant advantages compared to existing combinations where two development engineers work from home and coordinate daily tasks during a Zoom meeting.
– AI gurus might say that companies in the future will create autonomous digital twins as mentors and seniors who will be trained based on a large body of company knowledge and that such twins can then answer questions from younger employees. Such narratives are unrealistic and ignore the fundamental statistical limitations of artificial intelligence, as well as the types of interactions you can have with avatars. Marc Zuckerberg has stumbled on this last point, as he still lacks a clear monetization policy for VR, AR, or the metaverse, even though his Reality Labs invests tens of billions of dollars a year in it, explains Končić.
Nevertheless, he says that they at Neuralab are currently testing digital twins in the form of avatars.
Virtual Colleague
– We want to, for example, record a few colleagues who already share content so that we have their digital twins that we could then activate to create video content based on a manually written script. But the problem is that people in teams jump in with questions when the devil takes the joke and when situations get a bit more serious, so the question is whether automated avatars can even help in such situations. Sometimes they might even hinder, he concludes.
Končić also believes that the use of digital twins and the metaverse does not necessarily reduce costs, nor time. He says that the search for ever stronger, faster, and better tools is a constant in software engineering, but adds that it is naive to think that any tools will shorten a project or reduce necessary budgeting.
– The reason is very simple: ever stronger and faster tools actually encourage the creation of increasingly complex projects and integrations, so the project itself becomes a game of cat and mouse between efficiency and complexity. The construction sector is always an excellent analogy with the IT industry: the cost and complexity of construction have increased over the years, not decreased with the introduction of new tools.
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Siemens Croatia recently presented its industrial metaverse, a concept of a digital world that mirrors and simulates real machines and factories, buildings and cities, networks, and transport systems. Through seamless integration of technologies such as cloud and edge computing, industrial artificial intelligence, and digital twins, the industrial metaverse can optimize processes and promote sustainable practices, shaping the future beyond simulation.
Solving Real Problems
– The industrial metaverse is the next evolution of the digital twin. Thus, the digital twin is now involved much more than before. Take the example of a CAD file that you will experience in a richer context thanks to this concept, how it fits into its environment, how it interacts with the environment, etc. We return to the fact that such a technological concept ensures competitive and sustainable business for companies of all sizes because technologies like digital twins help ensure multiple solutions, says Ilić.
As an example, consider a scenario where an engineer, immersed in this digital environment, tests the aerodynamics of a new aircraft design. As she adjusts the shape of the wing, the simulation reveals changes in airflow and resistance in real-time, providing invaluable insights that would be costly and time-consuming to gather in the real world. Similarly, in a factory, building, or train, a digital twin can simulate processes allowing optimizations that save time and reduce waste before any changes are made in the real world. It can even rewind to the moment when the problem first appeared and fix it. The possibilities are truly vast.
– When we talk about the technology of the future and the digital world, our key strength is precisely that we can solve real problems for companies of all sizes, and from anywhere. Our company is patiently working on the model of the industrial metaverse, we combine all the mentioned technologies, and when we connect them, we believe that by the end of the decade it will be the industrial metaverse we envision, concludes Ilić.
EXAMPLE FROM PRACTICE How the blending of reality and the digital world works
Ivana Ilić, Director of Digital Industries at Siemens Croatia, describes how the company combines the real and digital worlds, achieving new levels of flexibility and faster market entry for products.
– Teams can collaborate from anywhere, thus saving time and travel costs. Our digital technologies saved lives during the pandemic. Those same technologies can provide companies with a competitive advantage today, but let’s keep in mind that digital transformation is complex, comprehensive, requiring many strategies and resources. Many companies in their efforts to digitally transform face various challenges: some get stuck at the concept stage, while others struggle to implement and integrate solutions. But once there is a finished system, when everything works, digital transformation unlocks enormous potential. And many companies in our market still need to get acquainted with this, says Ilić.
