Have you ever wondered if it were possible to predict process conditions in manufacturing? Know what is likely to happen before it actually happens in your business processes? Digital Twin might just be your answer.

Benefits:

• Digital Twin
  • Allow client to replicate and track manufacturing processes more efficiently, monitor attributes for FDA regulations
  • Allow for stimulation and real-time monitoring and transparency
  • Data Integrity – access to secured and audited data 
  • PAT Continuous vs Batch manufacturing (modern plants)
• Improved productivity and reduce downtime
• Making data available for digital visualizations and dashboards
• AF/EF – building of effective data infrastructure to contextualise and compartmentalise data to provide clean data
• Secured data transfer between CMOs and tier 1 manufacturers
• Data to cloud – reduce infrastructure cost

There are several different definitions of Digital Twins or Clones and many use them interchangeably with terms such as Industry 4.0 or the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT). Fundamentally, Digital Twins are digital representations of a physical asset, process or product, and they behave similarly to the object they represent. The concept of Digital Clones has been around for some time. Earlier models were based on engineering principles and approximations, however they required very deep domain expertise, were time consuming and were limited to a few use cases.

Today Digital Clones are virtual models that are built entirely by using massive historical datasets and Machine Learning (ML) to extract the underlying dynamics. The data driven approach makes Digital Clones accessible for a wide range of applications. Therefore, the potential for Digital Twins is enormous and includes process enhancements\optimization, equipment life cycle management, energy reductions, safety improvements just to name a few.

Building digital clones require:

1.      A large historical data set or data historian

2.      High data quality and sufficient data granularity

3.      Very fast data access

4.      A large GPU for the model development and real time predictions

5.      A supporting data structure to manage the development, deployment, and maintenance of ML models

The following shows the application of a Digital Twin to a batch process example. The model is built with 30 second interpolated data using a window of past data to predict future (5 min) data points:

So, what’s all the hype of Digital Clones? Well, not only are they able to predict process conditions, they also provide explanatory power on what drives the process - the underlying dynamics. The following dashboard shows a replay of this analysis including the estimate of the model weights:

Conclusion

In summary, the availability of enterprise level data historians and deep learning libraries allow Digital Clones to be implemented on the equipment and process level throughout manufacturing. The technology allows a wide range of applications and offer an insight into the process dynamics that were not previously available, improving data integrity and data access while achieving trust and data transparency with your partners. This helps to digitalize data management and processes to lower risk and improve efficient data sharing with partners.

Please contact us for more information.