Unlocking Production Performance with Optimize my plant at GWE

As a multi-award-winning plant, the Electronic Device Plant Erlangen (GWE) manufactures and develops industrial control systems for machine tools and production machines, drives and frequency inverters. In a highly diverse market with up to 1,000 product variants, Electronics Factory Erlangen has been successfully implementing end-to-end digitalisation and flexible automation for years.

At GWE, the fusion of Digital Twins, Plant Simulation, and Optimize my plant is redefining what operational agility and excellence look like. The Operational Digital Twin at GWE enables planners and shopfloor leaders to simulate, evaluate data driven decisions to boost throughput, optimize resource optimization and reduce energy consumption.

Discover the use cases of the operational digital twin

Calibrating and validating the Digital twin models

By connecting simulation models to real-time data via Optimize my plant and Data systems like SDC, GWE has significantly enhanced the accuracy of its Plant Simulation models. These models, now continuously updated with live production data, enable dynamic planning and rapid reconfiguration.

Linking the Digital Twin to live production not only improves data quality but also delivers immediate insights into real-world condition. This is key for the manufacturing industry as it unlocks broader use cases and increases confidence in decision-making.

Optimizing resources utilization with Optimize my plant

With a high-fidelity, calibrated simulation model in place, GWE has extended the power of the digital twin beyond engineers to other key frontline personas planners shopfloor leaders and shift supervisors. Through the Optimize my plant application, planners can simulate what if scenarios with different resource configurations ( worker teams and AGV deployment) and select the optimal setup to maximize machine and worker utilization.

Benefits

• Enhanced simulation model accuracy

By linking the digital twin with real data to continuously calibrate simulation models, it was possible to increase the predictive reliability and planning precision.

• Democratized Digital Twin experience

Optimize my plant is optimizing the digital twin experience allowing shopfloor leaders, planner and shift supervisor to leverage advanced simulation insights through a user-friendly application.

• Continuous improvement initiatives

The operational digital twin acts like a decision-making tool that allows ongoing performance optimization with confidence  

“The real breakthrough with Optimize my plant is how it brings the digital twin to life. We’ve moved beyond models to a living, dynamic system that mirrors real-time factory behaviour, and helps to continuously validate with live data, and drives operational optimization,” says Lars Schreiber, Expert for Simulation and Digital Twin, Siemens Electronics Factory Erlangen

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