Key points
- Digital twins are virtual replicas of physical assets that capture their design, behaviour, and other crucial parameters in real-time.
- Maintaining digital twins requires real-time monitoring of assets using IoT devices, sensors, and other connectivity tools.
- The PLCS standard provides an integrated view of asset data across traditionally siloed functional perspectives and is a perfect framework to achieve full digital twins.
- Digital twins can help organizations reduce downtime, improve asset performance, optimize maintenance schedules, and improve safety.
Digital Twin: The Future of Asset Management
The concept of a digital twin is gaining popularity in various industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, and aerospace. A digital twin is a virtual replica of a physical asset that captures its design, behaviour, and other crucial parameters in real-time. This technology can help organizations improve their asset management and reduce maintenance costs by providing accurate insights into asset performance.
The Challenges of Maintaining a Digital Twin
However, maintaining a digital twin is not without challenges. For instance, keeping the digital twin updated and relevant can be a daunting task. This requires real-time monitoring of assets using IoT devices, sensors, and other connectivity tools. Besides, managing different views of the asset, such as as-designed, as-manufactured, and as-maintained, can be complicated, as well as linking and tracing between them.
The PLCS Standard for Digital Twins
The Product Life Cycle Support (PLCS) standard is a state-of-the-art open data model designed to address the challenges of managing complex products and assets. This framework enables the creation of an integrated view of asset data across traditionally siloed functional perspectives. By using the PLCS standard, organizations can achieve a full digital twin, covering the complete lifecycle of the asset.
Key PLCS Concepts in ShareAspace
Eurostep’s ShareAspace Server provides a comprehensive solution for digital twin integration using the PLCS standard. The platform’s unique concepts include distinguishing between designs and actuals, managing different BOM views, recording processes and other actions applied to the product, managing different breakdown views, auditing trail covering the complete life cycle of a product and asset, managing product properties, and managing associated documents and other information. Additionally, ShareAspace can manage requirements, allocation, tracing, verification and validation.
Benefits of Digital Twins
By leveraging digital twins, organizations can reduce downtime, improve asset performance, and increase productivity. Digital twins can also help organizations optimize their maintenance schedules, minimize the risk of equipment failure, and improve safety. In addition, digital twins can provide valuable insights into product design and development, enabling organizations to improve their products’ quality and performance.
Conclusion
Digital twin technology is rapidly transforming the way organizations manage their assets. By creating a virtual replica of a physical asset, organizations can gain valuable insights into asset performance, reduce maintenance costs, and improve productivity. While maintaining a digital twin can be challenging, using the PLCS standard and solutions like ShareAspace can help organizations achieve a full digital twin across the entire lifecycle of the asset. As organizations continue to adopt digital twin technology, we can expect to see significant improvements in asset management, safety, and performance in various industries.
