Digital transformation has been essential for the industrial sector over the past few years. It is from this movement that new technologies began to be applied to the industrial sector.

 

The movement generated huge digitization of industrial processes and operations, causing a strong disruption in the sector. Although the digital trend is already taking root in many industries, there is still a long way to go.

 

As digitization gained ground, a new concept began to be widespread among industries, that of smart factories or smart operations.

 

The concept is defined as the application of different combinations of modern technologies to create a hyperflexible and self-adaptive operating and manufacturing capability.

 

The rise of smart factories was already underway thanks to the digital transformation, but it was because of the pandemic that this process became even more accelerated.

 

Read: Digital Transformation and the Impacts Generated by the Pandemic.

 

The needs imposed by the pandemic highlighted the need for an increasingly data-based, flexible, and adaptable operation. These needs could only be met thanks to the implementation of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and IoT between processes and operations.

 

The application of these two technologies is essential for collecting and processing large amounts of data coming from an industrial operation.

 

Read: Big data and its importance for data processing in an industry

 

In addition to these technologies, another essential tool for greater flexibility and process control is the Digital Twin, which has provided the contextualization of data generated by IoT sensors and AI algorithms.

 

Digital Twin technology consists of a continuous data stream between real assets and their digital replica. It is through this continuous flow that data is organized and processed so that the final result is beneficial to decision-makers.

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The digital twin is a kind of cyber-physical system capable of generating actions and knowledge of value in physical assets through its digital sphere.

 

The application of this technology has been boosted thanks to its benefits for operations and the trend is that the digital twin is increasingly popular among the sector.

 

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