BimScaler Blog – The benefits of digital twins range from enhanced decision-making and predictive maintenance to improved design and operational efficiency.
This means digital twins aren’t just a tech trend; they’re a strategic tool that can change how we manage and interact with physical assets.
From urban planning in Queensland to infrastructure management in New South Wales, there are so many ways this could be useful.
Let’s take a closer look at the different benefits of digital twins.
What are the Benefits of Using Digital Twins?
Digital twins are making waves across industries, from manufacturing and construction to healthcare and energy.
There are lots of different benefits, and they vary from one industry to another. You can see an example of this in the list below.
Manufacturing and Production
The paper “Four Ways Your Data Center Can Benefit from Digital Twins” by CommScope says that using digital twins in manufacturing helps you test, analyse and optimise your assets, which leads to a big improvement in performance.
By creating a digital model of the manufacturing environment, companies can test and analyse operations to spot inefficiencies and predict equipment failures before they happen.
This means that machinery can be kept running and its lifespan extended.
On top of that, digital twins let manufacturers test and validate new production strategies in a risk-free virtual environment, which speeds up innovation and improves product quality.
Siemens is a great example of a company that has successfully implemented digital twins in their factories.
Siemens saw a big boost in production efficiency by testing and optimising production lines before they’re put into use.
Construction and Infrastructure
The construction and infrastructure sectors really benefit from digital twins, especially when it comes to project management and making the most of resources.
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) paper, ‘Digital Twins for the Built Environment’, looks at how digital twins let you see what’s going on with construction projects in real time.
This helps you keep track of progress, manage resources and spot potential issues before they become critical.
This proactive approach can help cut construction costs, avoid delays and make work sites safer.
What’s more, digital twins help us look after and run our infrastructure by showing us everything we need to know about how our assets are doing, so we can plan ahead and make sure we’re using our resources in the best way.
One good example is the Cross River Rail project in Brisbane, which used a digital twin to model 300 square kilometres.
You might find it helpful to take a look at “Digital Twins Real Estate Offers a Virtual Edge to Attract More Customers.”
Life Sciences and Healthcare
The digital twins are opening up some amazing new possibilities for personalised medicine and operational efficiency.
The report “Digital Twin: Benefits, Use Cases, Challenges, and Opportunities” by Mohsen Attaran, shows how digital twins let us create detailed virtual models of organs, cells, or entire physiological systems, which we can use for patient-specific treatment planning and surgical simulations.
For instance, surgeons can use digital twins to practise complex procedures or predict the results of interventions.
Plus, digital twins help healthcare facilities get the most out of their resources, manage patient flow, and improve their service offering by providing real-time data on operations and patient conditions.
Energy and Utilities
Energy companies are using digital twins to keep an eye on and make the performance of things like wind turbines and power grids as good as it can be.
By running simulations of different scenarios, these companies can predict when equipment might fail and plan maintenance activities in advance. This helps them avoid downtime and cut maintenance costs.
Using digital twins in the energy sector also helps make energy production and distribution more efficient, which is great for the environment.
For example, digital twins can show how integrating renewable energy sources into the grid affects stability and efficiency.
The digital twins are also useful for predicting when things might go wrong with important infrastructure like power plants and transmission lines. This helps us avoid outages and make sure things last longer.
Supply Chain and Logistics
In supply chain and logistics, digital twins help us to see what’s going on and keep an eye on the whole process.
The IET’s report says you can use digital twins to keep an eye on and analyse logistics operations in real time, from production to delivery.
By running different scenarios through the digital twin, companies can make the best decisions on routing, inventory management and demand forecasting.
This means lower operational costs, faster deliveries and happier customers.
On top of that, digital twins can help spot where the supply chain is slowing down or not working as well as it could, so you can jump in and make improvements quickly.
Retail and E-commerce
Digital twins are giving retailers and e-commerce businesses new ways to make customers happier and work more efficiently.
They can use them to try out different store layouts, make sure products are in the right places, and see what customers do in a virtual environment.
This data-driven approach helps retailers to create more personalized marketing strategies, make inventory management easier and improve sales forecasting.
In e-commerce, digital twins help make sure orders are delivered on time and at a low cost by optimising logistics and delivery processes.
Financial Services
Financial institutions use digital twins to model different economic scenarios and stress-test their systems.
By running different financial scenarios, institutions can make better-informed investment decisions.
This predictive capability helps you make better decisions, manage risks, stay on the right side of the regulators and boost your financial performance.
And digital twins also help spotting fraud by providing real-time analysis and insights into financial transactions and activities.
Operational Efficiency and Automation
Across all industries, digital twins help make things more efficient and automate processes by combining data from different sources into one digital picture.
This integration lets you monitor, analyse and control operations in real time, which means you can improve efficiency, cut costs and boost productivity.
Take manufacturing, for instance. Digital twins can automate quality control processes and optimize production schedules.
They can also help to make patient management and resource allocation more efficient in the healthcare sector.
By taking care of the boring stuff and giving people the info they need to make decisions, digital twins let companies focus on what’s important and come up with new ideas.
What are the Competitive Advantages of Digital Twins?
One of the best things about digital twins is how they can help us make better decisions.
By giving a complete picture of how things work, digital twins help businesses try out different scenarios and predict what will happen, which means they can make better, more strategic decisions.
For instance, CommScope shows how digital twins help companies get the most out of their assets by letting them test and analyse configurations before they’re put into use.
This makes things more accurate and helps people make better decisions.
Similarly, IET says it’s good to integrate data throughout the asset lifecycle, as it helps with better management and planning.
Another great thing about digital twins is that they help companies try out new ideas without disrupting what they already have in place.
Mohsen Attaran talks about how digital twins let you run risk-free virtual simulations, which encourages a culture of innovation by exploring new strategies and technologies.
This ongoing improvement is also supported by the ability to run “what-if” simulations, as detailed in the IET paper. This allows organisations to adapt and refine their operations continuously.
As a point of reference, you might find it helpful to read “How BIM and Digital Twins Help Your Projects Reach Peak Performance.”
At the end of the day, digital twins also save money.
Predictive maintenance and optimised operations help cut costs by spotting potential issues before they happen, so less downtime and maintenance are needed.
Using digital twins helps us to be more sustainable because they help us to monitor and reduce the environmental impact of our operations.
By making better use of resources and cutting down on waste, digital twins help us to be more sustainable.
The IET paper shows how being able to see what’s going on with resource use in real-time helps organisations make decisions that support their sustainability goals.
How to Manage the Benefits of DIgital Twins
As we all know, every big gain comes with big challenges. And yes, digital twins bring some pretty unique challenges.
Setting up and running digital twins can be tricky, especially when it comes to combining different data sources and making sure the data is accurate.
That’s why we at BIM Scaler have put together a support system for digital twins and BIM management. Why should you look to us for help?
The team at BIM Scaler has lots of experience and can help you with every step of the digital twin journey, from the start to the finish.
What does that mean for you?
BIM Scaler can help you develop and implement effective CAD and BIM strategies to make your workflows more efficient and get the most out of digital twins.
BIM Scaler also offers custom solutions to fit your unique needs, ensuring that your digital twins are smoothly integrated into your current systems and processes.
So, you can find out more about our services on our BIM/CAD Management Support service page here.
We’d love to have you over for lunch if you’d like. We’re here for you 24/7, so just give us a shout and we’ll have a lunch meeting about what you need.
In Closing
This digital twins technology is proving its worth in all sorts of ways.
From manufacturing and construction to healthcare and energy, digital twins are changing the game across Australia and the Asia Pacific region.
That’s why, BIM Scaler can help you make the benefits of digital twins work for your business and give you an edge over the competition.
