Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1504794
20 SMT007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2023 demand meant that utilization would only ever be 80%. e lesson to be learned is that any simu- lation or prediction needs to be flexible, and must be based on the contextual elements of capabilities, requirements, and circumstance. It must be continuously evolving, rather than a massive, fixed interpretation. It is quite pos- sible to achieve this, but it brings the require- ment for a real-time simulation engine—and a whole lot of live data. e second experience is the sheer cost of digital twin development when it's done in the wrong way. e IPC-CFX (Connected Fac- tory Exchange) standard is a great example of how the approach of standardization reduces the cost of data by orders of magnitude, and we need to apply the same principles to the digi- tal twin. CFX replaces legacy interfaces, which need middleware and customization to translate data formats and protocols, such that data from many different sources can be contextual- ized within an application. For manufacturing digital twins, it's required to understand com- plex physical and operational specifications, capabilities, constraints, and temporal behav- iors. Every piece of equipment and manual operation is different and requires a very sig- nificant interpretation and translation of data because of where it originated from and how it was managed. We also have this desire to "see" something; the value of soware, especially in manufac- turing, is oen very hard to really understand. e use of 3D models—the cartoons of the pro- duction operation—help investors and users visualize that value while the action is taking place. us, it drives trust, understanding, and of course, cost. In the earliest cases, the 3D animated machines and processes cost millions of dol- lars to develop and showcase, as the physical components of each machine had to be drawn in 3D and associated correctly with other 3D components so that they appeared to interact together seamlessly. e result looked great, but should we have been spending Hollywood budgets on manufacturing terminals? ere is currently some excellent soware on the market, each with a proprietary ver- sion of its manufacturing digital twin, fed from disparate data sources, and limited in expansion and functionality by the exponen- tial need for data derived progressively from further afield.