Digital Twins and How They Can Optimize Your Business
Photo: Zouave Designs
With technology integrating more and more into our personal lives, by extension, it would only be natural that it would assume an ever-increasing role in managing and simplifying the day to day activities of our businesses operations as well. Additionally, one can take for granted that a bedrock principle of any business strategy would be consistent with improving efficiency, and making upstream steps in a production process more efficient can allow for compounding downstream efficiency. Accordingly, any tool or approach that could be adopted to boost efficiency at any stage of the production process would prove invaluable to a business. To this end, one of the tools gaining traction as the answer for how businesses can elevate their capabilities and overall performance is the digital twin (1).
What is a Digital Twin?
A digital twin is a virtual replica of an existing, physical system (2). Digital Twins act in real-time synchronicity to monitor and analyze the physical system’s processes to assess performance, preemptively address maintenance, simulate prototyping, and predict future outcomes (3). This capacity to perform these functions is accomplished by assimilating and integrating myriad data streams emanating from IoT field devices which feed into cloud-based hosting environments coupled to artificial intelligence (4). Thus, the digital twin serves as an übersimulator that is a digital enantiomorph of the real system, which can be leveraged to streamline real-time monitoring, improve predictive maintenance, supplement decision-making, drive product development, and ultimately, make your business more efficient (5).
Examples of Digital Twin Applications in Industry
Interestingly, the history of digital twins stretches back to at least the 1960s when the concept was brought to fruition by NASA as a response to the Apollo 13 accident (6). Presently, this technology is being championed by several luminaries as holding tremendous potential for applications in several industries (3), including healthcare (7), where it has the potential to serve as the linchpin of personalized medicine, and urban planning, with the city of Barcelona, Spain serving as a paradigm of how this technology can be leveraged to construct an ideal city of the future with efficient mass transit and low air pollution (8). However, it is in the energy sector where digital twin technology could prove to be most impactful, with the driving motivation for its integration being the key role it can play in decarbonization and sustainability initiatives (9). Specific examples of documented uses in the energy industry include real-time monitoring of turbine performance at wind farms (10), and the deployment of localized “smart grids” that modulate energy generation and expenditure to optimize power demand, reliability, price point, and carbon footprint (11). Consequently, digital twin technology is also attracting significant interest from investors wanting to capitalize on expanding it, with a recent report forecasting that the digital twin market will surpass $100B in revenue by 2028 (12) — a trend in great part credited to the healthcare industry’s demand for the technology (7).
Keyfive is a Digital Twin Authority
Keyfive offers clients customized digital twin configurations driven by AI and geared to perform real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance — in a completely scalable platform. Our digital twin technology can mitigate operational impediments such as asset management, compliance, and data overload. Keyfive’s digital twin solutions allow for seemless implementation, digital independence, cross-system compatibility, cross-platform harmony, and cutting-edge security. If you are seeking to apply a digital twin approach toward operating your business more efficiently, with lower overhead, in a sustainable manner, that stimulates product innovation, contact Keyfive today.
References
1. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Digital Twin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_twin.
2. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. (2020, December). Digital Twin: Definition & Value. https://www.aiaa.org/docs/default-source/uploadedfiles/issues-and-advocacy/policy-papers/digital-twin-institute-position-paper-(december-2020).pdf.
3. Willcox, K. (2023, September 5). How “Digital Twins” Could Help Us Predict the Future. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2_VWdjxchY.
4. Martin, S. (2021, December 14). What is a Digital Twin? nvidia.com. https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/what-is-a-digital-twin/.
5. IBM. (n.d.). What is a Digital Twin? ibm.com. https://www.ibm.com/topics/what-is-a-digital-twin.
6. Allen, B. D.(2021, November 1). Digital Twins and Living Models at NASA. nasa.gov. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20210023699.
7. Balasubramanian, S. (2023, December 22). Digital Twin Technology Has The Potential To Radically Disrupt Healthcare. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/saibala/2023/12/22/digital-twin-technology-has-the-potential-to-radically-disrupt-healthcare/?sh=1337f83a735f.
8. Euro Cities. (2023, May 3). Barcelona Shapes the Future of City Planning. eurocities.eu. https://eurocities.eu/stories/barcelona-shapes-the-future-of-city-planning/.
9. Sharma, G. (2023, October 25). Digital Twin Technology Indispensable For Energy Sector New-Build. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/gauravsharma/2023/10/25/digital-twin-technology-indispensable-for-energy-sector-new-build/?sh=7d0b34563218.
10. Infrastructure Investor. (2024, January 9). How Digital Twins Can Mitigate Operational Risk for Wind and Solar Projects. Infrastructureinvestor.com. https://www.infrastructureinvestor.com/how-digital-twins-can-mitigate-operational-risk-for-wind-and-solar-projects/.
11. The Next Web. (2024, January 11). Dutch Startup Battles Energy Grid Congestion with Digital Twins. thenextweb.com. https://thenextweb.com/news/dutch-startup-energy-grid-congestion-digital-twins.
12. Markets and Markets. (n.d.). Digital Twin Market Size, Share, Statistics and Industry Growth Analysis Report by Application (Predictive Maintenance, Business Optimization, Performance Monitoring, Inventory Management), Industry(Automotive & Transportation, Healthcare, Energy & Utilities), Enterprise and Geography - Global Growth Driver and Industry Forecast to 2028. marketsandmarkets.com. https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/digital-twin-market-225269522.html.
