Why OEMs must increase simulation adoption
Efficiency in manufacturing is key to ensuring competitiveness for years to come. Manufacturers around the world work to tackle labor shortages and successfully integrate innovative technologies all while keeping costs under control. Ultimately, manufacturers must digitize ande employ simulation their current production setups to meet these goals and remain profitable.
In an effort to fortify operations, many OEMs opt to use “use more steel” or overengineer their factories instead of relying on simulation and the digital twin—despite the vast benefits simulation can reap. Deploying the digital twin for design can help reduce waste, cut emissions and even increase efficiency; however, due to a lack of workers knowledgeable in simulation, leveraging the digital twin comes with some challenges.
During the Digital Transformation podcast, experts Chris Pennington, global industry marketing leader for industrial machinery, Rahul Garg, vice president for industrial machinery vertical software strategy and Dirk Hartmann, head of Simcenter Technology Innovation, share the benefits of investing in industrial simulation and the tools that make integrating the digital twin easier than ever before.
Simplifying simulation with AI
Compared to other industries, simulation in industrial machinery is not as prevalent. The skilled labor necessary for deploying simulation and the digital twin is much rarer; not only that, but many organizations also perceive it as giving weak ROI.
In reality, the digital twin empowers manufacturers to make informed decisions in the virtual world before investing in physical builds. A variety of trial runs of potential new systems can be done quickly without having to divert actual equipment from operations. On top of that, simulated verification can be completed sometimes within days, making it possible to have more optimized and flexible systems very quickly.
Dirk Hartmann adds that AI can help bring simulation into the hands of even novices. Using AI, novice users could set up simulations through automated boundary condition recognition and material suggestions while experts could work faster by reducing configuration time.
“[AI enables] less skilled people to use the technologies, but at the same time also, the same set of AI functionalities can be used to make even the fluent users much more efficient allowing them faster to do their work.”- Dirk Hartmann, head of Simcenter Technology Innovation
Democratizing simulation is especially important because the executable digital twin (xDT) can run alongside physical equipment in real-time, enabling manufacturers to unlock the full potential of their factories. With the xDT, factories can detect anomalies and predict maintenance cycles more easily. Already, a milling company has deployed the xDT to analyze coolant flow and chip accumulation using AI-powered vision sensors.
Augmenting simulation with AI
There is vast potential when it comes to using AI in tandem with simulation. Once the digital twin is well-integrated into the factory, AI can supercharge the factory’s operations. One way is through improving industrial data to keep machines up and running with greater efficiency and less downtimes.
Physical machines rarely fail; because of this it can be difficult for the digital twin to capture and simulate accurate failure data. Using AI, factories can generate synthetic data to make virtual machines more authentic. With this generated data, simulation can supply missing “stress-case” data and then further help AI make better decisions, such as predicting whether to shut down a machine immediately or safely continue running for a week until parts arrive. This loop between the digital twin and AI works to create a continuous improvement loop as it preserves operational data for engineers.
The digital twin has enabled manufacturers to make tremendous progress in building more resilient, adaptable operations. By uniting physics‑based simulations with advanced data analytics inside a fully virtual environment, factories can uncover deeper operational insights. With the combined power of digital twin and AI, designing the factory and improving machine reliability becomes simpler, more intuitive and highly efficient, resulting in significant gains in productivity and overall performance.
Siemens Digital Industries Software helps organizations of all sizes digitally transform using software, hardware and services from the Siemens Xcelerator business platform. Siemens’ software and the comprehensive digital twin enable companies to optimize their design, engineering and manufacturing processes to turn today’s ideas into the sustainable products of the future. From chips to entire systems, from product to process, across all industries. Siemens Digital Industries Software – Accelerating transformation.
