Have you ever come across an article talking about how Digital Twin will change industries? The search for this technology is increasing among many industrial managers, especially the asset integrity ones, and software powered by this solution is the sector’s bet.
Digital Twin History
The Digital Twin was originally designed by Michael Grieves in 2002, to be used in industries Project Life-cycle Management (PLM). To simply define a Digital Twin, it is the digital representation of an existing object, with the ability to exchange data. In a real Digital Twin, all the data flows from the physical to the digital object and vice versa. The physical can control the digital, but also the digital interferes in the physical. This constant flow fully integrated is what makes such a revolutionary technology.
Nowadays, the Digital Twin is used in many different areas besides the industrial one. Here we can highlight two of them: the aerospace industry with NASA Technology Roadmaps, and the healthcare system, with researchers pointing to Digital Twins as the medicine of the future – a fully personalized healthcare. You can see this application and many more in this article.
But how does it work in industries?
The first thing within the industry’s digital twin usage, it’s the Digital Twin Creation. It is developed based on 3D engineering models, and other documents that map your industrial plant. One of the applications of the Digital Twin technology at Vidya, among many others, is for Asset Integrity Management, which we will detail below.
After the Digital Twin Creation, the workflows and execution plans are parametrized to create and instruct predictive models. As doing that, we enter another part of the process: the data input one, where we can open a work order for inspection, which will utilize a tablet.
For every asset of your industrial plant it is possible to generate Work Orders and add documents and specific spreadsheets to the asset. With this W.O remote management, you can reduce the time of all your asset integrity team.
It’s possible to choose which component needs inspection or maintenance, by checking on the properties and adding an execution plan. Or you can select multiple elements based on filters, as CDS (Corrosion Degradation State) level up to 0, and select all the components with this characteristic.
Starting from this selection, you can choose the route that the team, or the teams, will do. The course can be defined from a known inspection route chosen manually, or recommended by the software, or still, you can define a parameter for the course, as inspection from which component has the highest CDS or by distance, for example.
With the route chosen, the teams, the execution plan, and the initial data, all this information will be inserted in a schedule, which you’ll have access to all the activities developed. In this schedule, you’ll be able to allocate teams, change the inspection order, and arrange the Work Order in the most practical way for you.
Sent the Work Order, the Vidya Software also counts with the following W.O tool. You can follow the execution through the activities time, status, or from the execution plan. The emitted W.O goes directly into the field tablet, which has the automatic synchronization – all the information in the tablet can be accessed from the software, where you can see reports about the execution. In the tablet, the operator can access customizable checklists made in the software according to the execution plan, and make photograph registers in the field, to insert in the software the real status of every component.
Back in the Office
Back in the Desktop application you can, directly on the 3D model, see the timeline of every component (execution plans selected for them, initial data of inspection, and asset status). All these results will be available in the software through customizable dashboards, and over time, with new data, it’s possible to predict a budget and the integrity of assets. Besides, we are always improving our software, and you can see our new features in this link: click here to access.
Therefore, Digital Twin technology is revolutionizing the industry making it possible to have full control over your assets in a virtual platform. With all the information provided by this technology, the operation can be optimized. In conclusion, the industrial process with Digital Twin Technology is more efficient, sustainable and safe for those who work in person at the industrial plant.
About the Author: Otávio Corrêa
