Digital Twin has close cousins – simulation and modelling
Published on : Tuesday 05-03-2024
PV Sivaram, Evangelist for Digital Transformation and Industrial Automation.
What role does digitalisation now play in the transformation of process industries with the convergence of IT/OT (Information Technology/Operational Technology)?
Digitalisation is of late strongly associated with the discrete manufacturing industry. Indeed the allied terms for digitalisation – smart manufacturing, Industry 4.0 – are also used in conjunction with discrete manufacturing. This has occurred from the fact that process industries are highly instrumentated; meaning that there was always a good amount of instrumentation in a process plant. With this foundation, it was relatively easier for these industries to implement automation.
Process automation has been until lately a centralised concept. There are sensors all across the plant, all connected to controllers at a central location. Increasing cost of instrument cabling, and associated maintenance problems led to the concept of distributed control systems (DCS).
What about the next step, viz., digitalisation? At present, an actual direct intervention of digitalisation into plant operations does not seem to appeal. But how about broadening the view beyond plant control? Then many applications suggest themselves; right from supply-chain to quality, recipe management. Take a step back and you can see design and validation of control algorithms as a worthy topic.
Could you elaborate on the specific benefits that the integration of cutting-edge technologies, such as digital twins and artificial intelligence, bring to process industries?
Both Digital Twin and Artificial Intelligence are being bandied around so much so that it becomes difficult to pin down their meaning and definition.
Digital Twin has close cousins – simulation and modelling. In any process of sufficient complexity, modelling is a first serious step. Today, with the tools that are available, digital modelling should be a compulsory first step before design engineering of a plant.
A robust model exposes many crucial design parameters and constraints. Once you have a strong model, the next one can use simulation tools to explore several what-if scenarios. With simulation, one can achieve high efficiency, safety and sustainability at viable cost.
Digital twin aspires to have the same process model at its heart. The model becomes a digital twin when the input measurements and outputs are continuously made available to the Digital Twin. The digital twin can help in maintenance scheduling, in production planning, and innovation of product mix.
How does the trend towards more flexible and modular plants align with broader industry goals, and what are the potential implications for the future of process industries?
It is the market which dictates terms. When the demand is continuously changing, production needs to be flexible to track the market. Indeed, it is not even sufficient to track the market with a lag; it is needed to anticipate the market. How does one do this? Today we have very good tools which are able to analyse trends from social media, and come out with reliable forecasts. This is something which process industries need to get good at. In other words, no matter what your line of business and product which you make, you must have digitalisation at your core. Future competition is not going to be between companies, it will be between supply chains. That means companies must integrate strongly with their entire supply chain. The topic is already well developed in discrete manufacturing, and the process industry will do well to benefit from the learnings.
(The views expressed in interviews are personal, not necessarily of the organisations represented.)
PV Sivaram, Evangelist for Digital Transformation and Industrial Automation, is mentor and member of steering committee at C4i4. He retired as the Non-Executive Chairman of B&R Industrial Automation and earlier the Managing Director. He is a past President of the Automation Industries Association (AIA). After his graduation in Electronics Engineering from IIT-Madras in 1976, Sivaram began his career at BARC. He shifted to Siemens Ltd and has considerable experience in Distributed Systems, SCADA, DCS, and microcontroller applications.
Sivaram believes strongly that digitalisation and adoption of the technology and practices of Industry 4.0 is essential for MSME of India. He works to bring these concepts clearer to the people for whom it is important. He believes SAMARTH UDYOG is nearer to the needs of India, and we must strike our own path to Digital Transformation. Foremost task ahead is to prepare people for living in a digital world. He is convinced that the new technologies need to be explored and driven into shop floor applications by young people. We need a set of people to work as Digital Champions in every organisation.
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