Digitalization has disrupted the manufacturing industry, making it imperative for companies to find ways to drive increased value through innovation. Already, most manufacturers routinely use the digital thread to track, test, simulate and optimize their products from ideation through production. This is done through the product digital twin and production digital twin – virtual representations of the product and production line, respectively.
Predicting, based on historical data, how a product will perform and how a production line will operate not only saves on building physical prototypes but the data can be leveraged to refine aspects of the manufacturing process based on inputs, such as material costs and line utilization to determine efficient and cost-effective processes.