Why is digital twin technology important?
“ Digital twins are powerful masterminds to drive innovation and performance. Imagine it as your most talented product technicians with the most advanced monitoring, analytical, and predictive capabilities at their fingertips. By 2018, companies who invest in digital twin technology will see a 30 percent improvement in cycle times of critical processes, predicts IDC.
There will be billions of things represented by digital twins within the next five years. These proxies of the physical world will lead to new collaboration opportunities among physical world product experts and data scientists whose jobs are to understand what data tells us about operations.
Digital twin technology helps companies improve the customer experience by better understanding customer needs, develop enhancements to existing products, operations, and services, and can even help drive the innovation of new business.”
- Forbes Magazine
Robotic Welding & Tritons Self Teach Welding System
Utilizing the 3D design of the the welding fixture, along with the 3D layout of the welding cell we can create a true digital twin of the manufacturing process. The robot programming and weld path programming can all be done off-line using the simulation software. A review of the weld path to insure there is no contact or collision concerns is the next step, followed by the verification of torch tip angles. Now that all of the aspects have been reviewed in the digital space, we can dry cycle the cell review any differences from the digital model. With the self-teach system activated, we can cycle the robot through it’s inspection routine and measure the key points that will be compared to the digital twin and offsets made accordingly. With the self teach routine run and offsets made, the welding process can begin with confidence in the quality of the part. The illustration below highlights the ability to make changes or write new programs all without holding a robot pendent. The other benefits to this approach are decreased time to produce parts from new tooling as the programming can be completed after tool design phase and while the tooling is being manufactured.