How does a smart factory create digital twins?

The digital twin of smart factory is to reflect the production process and working environment of physical factory by creating a visual and operational virtual model. It realizes real-time data analysis and simulation of production process through computer simulation technology and data collection of Internet of Things, which makes it possible for intelligent upgrading of manufacturing industry.

Industry pain point

Insufficient efficiency and response speed: Many factories can't adapt quickly when facing demand changes and market fluctuations, which is usually due to the rigidity of production lines and the lag of information flow.

High equipment maintenance cost: The lack of equipment monitoring and maintenance system leads to frequent equipment failures, which not only increases the maintenance cost, but also affects the production efficiency.

Difficulties in production quality control: in traditional factories, product quality monitoring often relies on manual inspection, which is not only inefficient, but also difficult to ensure objectivity.

How to establish the digital twin system of factory buildings can basically be divided into the following four steps:

Define goals and requirements: First, define the goals that the digital twin system will achieve and the functional requirements needed to achieve these goals. This may include improving production efficiency, reducing operating costs and improving product quality.

Integrate sensors and IOT equipment: deploy sensors and IOT equipment to collect real-time data of factory equipment and production lines; Including but not limited to machine running state, energy consumption data and environmental parameters.

Establish data processing infrastructure: use big data technology and powerful computing resources to process and analyze the massive data collected. Cloud computing platform or off-site powerful server will undertake this work and provide support for the operation of the model.

Create and maintain digital twin model: develop a virtual model corresponding to the actual factory environment to ensure that it can accurately reflect the operation of the physical factory. This step involves complex modeling techniques, such as three-dimensional modeling, using ready-made digital twin platforms or developing special software independently.

The factory can monitor the production process in real time, predict and optimize the production operation, and carry out fault diagnosis and predictive maintenance through the digital twin model, which will also greatly reduce the downtime and maintenance cost.

Through the above detailed introduction, it is not difficult to find that the digital twin technology of smart factory has a powerful transformation force, which can help manufacturing enterprises solve the industry pain points for many years, realize the intelligence and automation of production, and achieve the purpose of improving efficiency, reducing costs and ensuring quality. With the deepening of digital transformation, digital twins will play a more critical role in the future manufacturing industry.