Accelerating innovation with digital twins

Digital twins insights

• Digital twins help industrial facilities reduce risks and costs by simulating system performance and training operators before live deployment.
• By using digital twins, companies can accelerate innovation and continuous improvement, optimizing processes without risking physical equipment.

For industrial facilities to remain competitive, it is necessary to invest time and money into automating and optimizing processes and modernizing outdated production equipment. But automation projects are often challenging to execute as budgets are limited, development windows are typically short, and there is not much tolerance for downtime or other risks that could impact production. One often-overlooked tool for tackling these challenges is pairing the development of a digital twin with an automation project.

Whether it’s building a new system or upgrading existing components, companies can use a digital twin to simulate and analyze a system’s performance under various conditions. The results of the simulation will help reduce many implementation risks since potential issues can be identified and addressed before ever reaching the live system. Operators can also be trained using the virtual system, ensuring a smooth startup process when changes are made.

The use cases for a digital twin go well beyond a single automation project. These digital systems offer many post-implementation benefits ranging from new workforce training to the ability to accelerate innovation and continuous improvement.

Since digital twins are so versatile, considering these real-world scenarios to understand their capabilities and benefits.

Piloting process changes without interrupting production

For one science and technology company producing specialty gases used in semiconductor manufacturing, minimizing downtime when deploying necessary changes to their automation and control system was crucial. As the team worked with the organization to design and build their distributed control system (DCS), they decided this project was a good opportunity to test the waters with a digital twin for one part of their process.

A medium-fidelity digital twin of a filling process was developed as part of their production, which required the most operator interaction. The company then used the digital twin to pilot various process changes, perform sandbox testing, and execute more comprehensive operator training prior to installation of the new DCS. With this ability to test changes and troubleshoot issues in a virtual environment, they were able to minimize the risks and costs associated with performing numerous physical trials with their new system. With the digital twin configured, the company can continue to use the system to onboard operators more effectively.

Reducing risk for a large-scale DCS modernization

When a large chemical manufacturer was having trouble obtaining spare parts and support services for their 20+ year old DCS, the plan was to execute a multi-phase modernization. Since the company had very limited downtime windows to work with and their process includes an exothermic reaction with potentially dangerous materials, the integration team proposed the idea of simultaneously developing a digital twin to mitigate risk during this upgrade.

The company was interested in the digital twin for a couple reasons. First, since it is difficult and dangerous to train operators on abnormal situations with the live system, making the ability to conduct this training in an identical digital environment was attractive. Second, because of the limited time available for cutover to the new system, they liked the idea of performing extensive testing and operator training in the simulated system before the new DCS was live.

They developed a digital twin that was a cross between a medium- and high-fidelity system that incorporated input from site operators and engineering staff to ensure the simulated system really did mimic their experiences with the plant.

To help the company better plan for future changes, procedures were developed for the customer to concurrently update the digital twin as changes are made to the DCS. The customer also learned how to test new changes on the digital twin and then move the changes to the production DCS once they were ready.

Using simulation to accelerate time to market

As part of a multifaceted effort to release new process technology and expand the markets they serve, a global leader in manufacturing stationary fuel cell platforms needed a way to make process changes that would help them quickly get to market. While they were developing this new technology, this company was also embarking on a change to their automation platform vendor, further complicating what they needed to do. To address these concerns, ensure a smooth transition as their process dynamics changed, and provide an environment where they could test new ideas before the equipment was built and later once it was built without risking damage to the physical equipment, an environment with a simulation platform was configured.

Using the new simulation platform, the customer started testing and verifying their control system code before receiving their new control hardware and before the skid was manufactured, accelerating development time. They also could now test small segments of their process and ensure system quality before moving on to the next step.

With the digital twin, they eliminated the need for extensive small-scale piloting. The virtual testing environment also allowed them to better protect their valuable hardware since the hot processes they run can damage a fuel cell if something does not go right, which is more likely to happen in the early stages of the pilot process. Overall, this company can now scale up faster as they’ve eliminated the need for some of the physical steps in the development process and they are now spending less time on process development since they can use their digital twin as a test environment instead of their physical hardware.

Digital twins drive automation project efficiencies

By implementing a digital twin alongside an automation project, industrial facilities can experience a wealth of benefits. As shown through the examples in this article, use cases range from simulating and analyzing performance to optimizing processes without risking damage to physical equipment to the ability to train operators on both normal and abnormal operational conditions, all in a simulated environment.

By incorporating the ideas highlighted in these digital twin use cases into the next automation project, companies can reduce implementation risks, costs and time while ensuring a smoother transition as changes are made.

Ian Burns is president at Applied Control Engineering.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Understand how digital twins can improve automation processes.
• See three case studies on how digital twins helped companies.
• Learn how simulation can accelerate time to market

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