The Digital Twin

🙋‍♂️🙋‍♂️ Digital Twin: Promise of the future for #mechanical engineering or kryptonite for #medium-sized companies? The crux: #Quantification.

I first heard about the #DigitalTwin at Fraunhofer in early 2015. At that time, the very esteemed Prof. Rainer Stark was also involved in defining this vision of the future:

✅ Having a digital copy, a digital image, of everything that is produced.
✅ A model that grows with the development of the product, with production itself, where in principle all the information is contained.
✅ In the best case, it is also fed with details from the product life cycle in order to draw conclusions about what needs to be improved.

The undisputed good news is that the Digital Twin brings huge efficiency gains in many areas.

However, the transformation effort required in the course of preparing the models and mapping the processes should not be underestimated. This is what (still) holds many companies back from the Digital Twin.

With clous, we are able to support companies in the preparation of models. But the core questions that SMEs in particular have to ask themselves, and not just because of the current economic situation, are the same as for all digitization projects:

❓ How can I quantify this?
The benefits are clear, but is it profitable?
Can I afford the initial investment?

There is no doubt that technology will ultimately make things better, simpler, and more beautiful. But small and medium-sized businesses are struggling. They struggle because they see the opportunities, but often the costs cannot be estimated. And they complain because the visible opportunities are not always easy to quantify.

So he's right to squabble? 🤔

As a technology, I would say: No!

When in doubt, one should always try to enable modernization and exploit potential. Especially when a technology like the Digital Twin will probably become the standard in the medium term.

But the path to successful implementation is still very complex. Companies are dependent on outside experts and individual solutions. There is not yet a "one-fits-all solution" for the digital twin.

❗️ This is exactly where the corporate dog lies buried in terms of progress: These are huge projects that no mid-sized company can simply handle.

It's a different matter when a corporation invests a few million euros to get a department or subsidiary ready to implement and use the Digital Twin as a test balloon. Medium-sized companies, on the other hand, for whom an investment of €100,000 is already a matter for consideration, are faced with a completely different starting position.

Here, the focus is currently more on security and resilience. And more resilient processes usually also mean more expensive processes - money that is ultimately not available for digitization topics such as the Digital Twin.

What are your experiences with and expectations of the Digital Twin?