Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1505220
26 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2023 chasing or manufacturing. But the more seam- lessly they do these digital transformations, leveraging these digital twins, the greater the output for the PCB designer. Barry Matties: I'm curious: Is the decision about digital twin a business office decision? How do they sell it? I would say that engineers are already using digital twins (the only decision is how effi- ciently they're going to use them). But yes, management must be involved in the larger digital transformation. e value proposition of digital transformation is usually around qual- ity, time, cost, and different variants of that. In terms of time and cost of the design process, if you adopt a cleaner process, you don't have to do those respins, and that saves you money on prototyping, and it saves you money on the engineering time spent going back and doing those cycles. That should trigger the com- p et it ivene s s in any management t e a m , r i g h t ? Yo u have to start from those high-level benefits and work your way in to sell t h e m o n i t . D e p e n d i ng on the size of the company, they may laugh at you and say, "Buzz off with your fancy words." But you'll find that really large companies have a digi- tal transformation officer, just like you have a CTO, who is empowered to optimize the pro- cesses for the company's benefit. Matties: But for companies that aren't that large, is part of the challenge, aside from the business model and skill set model, that management may consider implementation too high of a hurdle? Sure, and that's where lots of people make good money consulting on best practices. at's why we all engage with analysts and do surveys to quantify the benefits of digital transformation. But it oen takes pressure of some form, such as a company facing abject failure, to consider doing something dramatically different. Matties: Yes, if there's somebody out there to help mitigate the risk to a tolerable level, we'll see quicker transformation. We may see the Holy Grail that I mentioned. It's a holistic digital twin that would allow you to look at the surface of a jet or car, and just zoom in and look under the covers. It would let me zoom in some more so I can probe the entire model, top to bottom, all the way down to the smallest via. I can't say that we won't see it in our lifetime. We've had some huge innova- tions in this space. Shaughnessy: What advice would you give those who are interested in the digital twin? Gosh, look outside of your box. Have the curiosity to see and evalu- ate other processes for what they're worth, and what they could bring back to you and your team. Doing the same thing day in, day out is boring. So, look around and see what other teams are doing. e dig- ital transformation is continuing, and it's a great time to get out of the box. Shaughnessy: Thanks for sharing all of this. I know you've been working on digital twin for quite a while. This was very enlightening. It's my pleasure, Andy. ank you. DESIGN007 References 1. "Digital Transformation: Leveraging Digital Twin to Optimize Electronic Systems," by David Wiens, December 2021, Design007 Magazine (part of a larger series on digital transformation). The digital transformation is continuing, and it's a great time to get out of the box.