Manufacturing: a compelling use case for metaverse
What is the metaverse and how does it impact manufacturing?
There’s a lot of buzz across the vast world of technology about the metaverse, right now. Facebook certainly helped turn up the volume, with its recent rebranding as “Meta”, signaling its focus on the metaverse – i.e. the immersive, hyper-connected, virtual world that is becoming ubiquitous in every aspect of daily life and business.
Have you considered what the metaverse means for electronics manufacturing? Zac Elliot, a Technical Marketing Engineer at Siemens, has been thinking about it, and has concluded that our industry is one of the most compelling use cases for the metaverse.
He shared his insights in his monthly column published in May on I-Connect007. Zac explains what the metaverse is, why it exists, what we know about it (and a little bit about what still remains to be seen).
Among the points to raised:
The metaverse is still in its very earliest stage. There’s lots of hype, but not so many real capabilities behind it. At this point, we are yet to see what new technologies, infrastructure and ways of interacting online will be developed.
But one thing we do know is that the digital twin is a key characteristic of the metaverse because it aims to be a parallel reality to the physical world. That means that every object in our environment must have a digital copy that is synchronized for simulation and optimization.
Therefore, IoT data is key, as there must always be connectivity between the virtual and physical worlds. IoT devices will monitor status and conditions of the physical world and provide the information to the metaverse, to maintain the digital environment.
How will this play out for manufacturing? Think factory visualization. The entire factory layout will be twinned in the metaverse, enabling virtual investigation and optimization of every aspect of production.
What will that allow? What’s next for manufacturers, given the continuing evolution of the metaverse? Read Zac’s column Lean Digital Thread: The Manufacturing Metaverse to delve into these questions, and more about the metaverse.
