How a digital twin helps you to increase production efficiency

The corona virus has developed from a local epidemic into a global threat within a very short time. The consequences make it clear how vulnerable humans and the economy have become as a result of globalization.

Countermeasures have to be initiated as the direction in which society and especially companies have changed. The Keywords here are deglobalization, digitalization, automation and ecological transformation.

A possible direction correction for manufacturing companies concerns the global supply chains. They are very sensitive and quickly affected by downtimes. In the stress test of recent months, manufacturing companies with a high vertical range of manufacture obviously had an advantage here.

But the in-house production depth at local sites cannot be increased so easily, as many production steps were outsourced in the past. In addition, industrialized nations are experiencing high labor costs, especially Germany, where (arguably) labor costs lead all major industrialized nations and emerging markets.

An increase in the vertical range of manufacture must take three axes of action into account:

• increasing automation from a station perspective

• a digitalization from a factory perspective

• the redesign of logistics processes from a holistic perspective.

There is an urgent need to tackle these central subtasks of digital transformation in order to increase the resilience of production processes and logistics chains.

Companies find support in IT companies such as CENIT, which use its know-how to analyze the entire manufacturing process and develop customized solutions.

The spectrum ranges from automation using robots and digital factory networking to the analysis of material flows. The result is a digital image - a digital twin, so to speak, that behaves like the real factory.

From our point of view, the concept of the digital twin is the ideal tool for starting up production from a standstill. With a digital twin, critical IF/ELSE cases can be analyzed and malfunctions avoided even before a real production start.

A digital twin must be seen as a sparring partner with whom production conversions can be tested, real production can be observed in parallel or in advance, mistakes can be analyzed and improvements can be made. Even situational production control is conceivable in order to intervene in real production with foresighted production data analysis.

The current situation is a shock. Free yourself from this rigidity! We have the opportunity to emerge from the recession stronger than before - provided we accept the challenges of the digital transformation. This applies to society as much as to companies.

Let our experts advise you on ways to achieve digital transformation.