July 8, 2024
AB InBev - OPTIMIZING OPERATIONS
Around 2023, it was revealed that the brewer was working with Microsoft to create digital twins of its breweries and supply chain in order to monitor assets and processes in real time.
The digital twins reflect the “complex relationships between the natural ingredients and [the] brewing process,” enabling AB InBev’s brewmasters to adjust settings based on active conditions while also providing insight into quality and traceability.
The system also monitors energy use, uses AI/ML to detect and auto-compensate for bottlenecks in the canning and bottling processes, allows for AR-powered remote collaboration to fix problems in the plant faster, and more.
BMW - PRODUCTION PLANNING
BMW has been interested in digital twins for quite some time. In 2021, the luxury automaker used NVIDIA’s Omniverse platform to simulate every aspect of its manufacturing processes, down to work order instructions for factory workers, in 31 of its factories. This helped to reduce production planning time by 30%.
In 2023, the company expanded its use of Omniverse to a global rollout of digital factory twins for optimizing layouts, robotics, and logistics systems years before production starts.
ENGIE - ASSET MANAGEMENT
In 2023, ENGIE worked with PTC to develop a real-time digital twin of an industrial furnace to assist in the transition towards zero carbon emissions. The idea is to use the twin to simulate the system and optimize management of industrial assets during the company’s conversion to hydrogen.
PTC’s ThingWorx platform provides the IoT connectivity and manages all the generated data. Sensor information is fed into the digital twin which then replicates the functions, characteristics, and behavior of the real physical furnace.
Lowe’s - STORE LAYOUT OPTIMIZATION & COLLABORATION
Not all that unlike BMW, the home improvement retailer turned to NVIDIA’s Omniverse to create interactive store digital twins with the ultimate goal of empowering associates to better serve customers, collaborate in new ways, and optimize store operations.
By pulling together store and customer data like sales performance, customer traffic, order history and product location, into hundreds of simulations with digital twins, Lowe’s is reconfiguring store layouts, providing restocking support, and more.
Store associates wearing Magic Leap 2 can interact with the digital twins to, for instance, confirm product configurations on store shelves and see inside stockroom boxes to ascertain their contents. They can also communicate with store planners by flagging areas of a planogram directly on the digital twin, like an “AR sticky note.”
Lowe’s also plans to make over 600 3D product assets from its library available to other Omniverse creators.
Renault Group - VEHICLE DESIGN
According to Renault, starting in 2017, the French car manufacturer tured its attention to digitizing its entire production process, from first design sketches to delivery to owner. Why? To better cope with challenges like increasing vehicle complexity and increasing regulations, and to become more efficient, lower costs, and cut waste.
Digital twins come into play in design, engineering, manufacturing, and customer service. “Vehicles are now built using a digital twin”--designers begin the development of the digital twin, iterating with virtual models to finalize the exterior and interior of the future vehicle, before engineering takes over.
Engineering uses the digital twin to create and test every component of the car without physical limitations, including bodywork aerodynamics and engine performance. Engineers put the digital twin through virtual crash tests, road driving scenarios, and weather conditions–much faster than physically possible. The tested and refined model becomes the digital twin with which the first physical mock-up of the vehicle is then made.
Over the years, Renault has also tested XR for applications like remote dealership support, remote training on electric vehicles, and brand awareness in the metaverse.
Image source: Geospatial World
