The live stream organized by DYNAMIC FUTURE brought current information from the world of digital twins on the 3th of December. The Czech consulting company celebrates 20 years of operation, during which it has worked on several hundreds of projects in the fields of buying and selling, logistics, forecasting, transportation, management and business processes optimization. 

The past and the future according to DYNAMIC FUTURE

“Twenty years ago, we didn’t have a clue about where the whole project was going. Today, we create digital twins of complex systems, whole enterprises and halls. Digital twins are used to verify investment proposals and new customer requirements,” said Jan Slajer, executive head of the company. According to the second executive, Petr Jaluvka, digital twins give clients a crystal ball and material based on which decisions can be made. “I think that digital twins lack one dimension – we measure the processes by time, finances, performance, productivity, but there’s no evaluation of the ecological footprint of it. Today, not everything is the question of money, companies choose processes that have the least ecological footprint possible”, stated Jaluvka.

The simulation tool optimizes the device operation without shutting it down

One of the biggest advantages of simulations is their ability to change processes and procedures without interrupting the operation of the given device. Jan Knajfl, the industrial engineer of the company producing semiconductor components ON Semiconductor Czech Republic, Roznov pod Radhostem, described working with the simulation tool WITNESS Horizon when optimizing the operation of one of the devices, specifically in two modes – model and serial. “WITNESS can be connected to internal MES and provide it with the information from the company database, which enables working with validation of output accuracy,” said J. Knajfl. 

It’s important that the optimization can be done without shutting down the device, which would be very expensive. With simulation, it was possible to increase efficiency of devices by 8–9 percent which is a significant increase considering the costs.

A simulation model instead of a large number of expensive experiments

Using a digital twin carried out in WITNESS Horizon while developing an automated paint shop planning was described by Vojtech Soukup. Together with Jan Jungwirt, he implemented a simulated project of the logistic process related to developing an automated exterior plastic parts paint shop planning. Their objective was to perform a detailed risk analysis and propose basic solution principles with the goal to reduce the handling difficulty and apply synchronous production as much as possible.

“We used the digital twins model in paint shop plan verification. Digital twins are applied in places where there are more experiments needed for optimization. In a real system, that would be very expensive, time consuming or completely impossible,” stated Vojtech Soukup from Magna Bohemia.

Even students have to familiarize themselves with professional systems

Within the Process Management study programme at the Faculty of Business and Management at Brno University of Technology, they use a business process laboratory. According to Zdenka Videcka, it’s necessary for the students to be able to work with professional systems and devices in order to familiarize themselves with advanced technologies. “They are the ones who are going to put them into practice”, Z. Videcka added.

The laboratory is equipped with tools simulating an intelligent factory for business processes management, such as systems based on the digital twins technology, technical equipment and managerial simulation games.

It’s necessary to aggregate input data for digital twins

Jiri Holik spoke for the Lanner Global Delivery Team. He introduced a developing Slovak study in which a digital twin assesses the impacts of strategic proposals of an automated warehouse with overhead conveyors everyday operation. He showed the interface of digital twins to the stream participants, specifically the part where the customer fills out input information. “I think that today, it’s possible to gather too detailed data. For digital twins that we create, it’s necessary to aggregate data. For example, these are not minute samples of some states, but rather sequences, requirements, plans etc,” he explained.

He perceives an enormous advantage of digital twins: being able to implement their outputs almost immediately.