Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1398328
12 SMT007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2021 of digital twin-based applications for things such as capacity or capability planning, qual- ity yield management, as well as solutions with narrower scopes, such as the understanding of how materials are used that affect the per- formance of the end-product, the operation of a certain machine or process, the variation of spacing between electronic and mechanical components and their effect on heat transfer, rigidity etc. All these are different examples of applications that exist where digital twin solu- tions are coming. e problem today, however, is that these digital twins are individual. ey are not interoperable with each other. Effectively you're stuck with your old "single-use" com- puter programs. e real principle of digital twin is to make data and results from solutions interoperable. One example of this is in the use of data from manufacturing for design. A good designer would like to understand real manu- facturing constraints, so that they can improve their design, but designers typically don't understand manufacturing-speak, and would find it hard to understand the many kinds of data that they would receive. We therefore need to create a schema, if you like, an archi- tecture, that allows solutions that are outside of one domain, to be able to understand the data of another. e result is that solutions in design, manufacturing and the marketplace can all understand each other. We then have a continuous flow of information across what used to be silos. Johnson: Which is then presented in a way such that a non-expert in one domain can use the information to help their expertise in their own domain. Ford: Exactly. Barry Matties: If you want to streamline the process and the relationship, you need better communication. e digital twin is the com- munication link or the universal translator, Ford: ere are. I think the term "digital twin" has become a buzzword. ere are those who are seeking to use the digital twin as a way of solving problems in ways that have not been possible before. Here is where a multitude of digital twin applica- tions become interesting. Originally, digital twin started with design, with an aerthought given to manufacturing. We wanted to have a viewable 3D model, for example, of a car with- out having to build something made from clay, which sounds a little bit old-fashioned today, right? So why not model it in three dimensions on the screen, to be able to see and understand how all the components fit and interact, to model how everything works together? is is where the digital twin first became famous, but now we've moved on to other applications, including getting into manufacturing itself, where we would like to be able to see, in a dig- ital sense, exactly how, and how well, every new product would be made. is is the next logical step, and just the start of a long road of future digital twin appli- cations. You ultimately may have thousands Michael Ford