Digital Twin - Maplesoft Engineering Solutions - Maplesoft

Creating Digital Twins using MapleSim

With next-generation simulation solutions built from MapleSim models, you can speed up your product development, transform the performance of your automation hardware and even support diagnostics in real-time for the assets in your industrial fleet.

What is a Digital Twin?

Simulations and digital twins both utilize digital models to represent the various processes of a system, but a digital twin provides a virtual environment that stays up-to-date, making it more flexible for applications across a product lifecycle.

A digital twin can be used during R&D and production all the way through to monitoring and maintenance. It unlocks synergies by providing a single source of truth across every department, from design to training to marketing.

Maplesoft has aligned with industry leaders to accept a common definition of a Digital Twin:

What is a Digital Twin?
A Digital Twin is a virtual model of a corresponding physical product that is augmented with real-time operational data feeds to respond in the same way as the physical product.
Click here to read more of how Digital Twins are used in industry.
Saving Time and Money on Designing

Saving Time and Money on Designing

Faster Control Testing

Faster Control Testing

Reduced Downtime

Reduced Downtime

Reliable Modeling Responses

Reliable Modeling Responses

Benefits of Machine-Level Digital Twins

In industry, the Digital Twin offers unlimited possibilities beyond the design process. For teams that model machines and industrial systems, these include providing a virtual environment for designing, testing, monitoring, diagnostics, and for developing an extended reality (augmented, virtual or mixed reality) for visualisation and training.

Whilst there is a visual appeal to factory-level simulations, the whole design process sees an increase in value and scalability by applying the modeling at the machine level.

The key value proposition of machine-level Digital Twins originates from:

  • Saving Time and Money on Designing: Virtual prototyping using MapleSim is cheaper and more versatile for product development than physical prototyping.
  • Faster Control Testing: Virtual commissioning with MapleSim speeds up PLC code validation and reduces the risk of harming physical hardware when testing different control strategies. Our fast efficient simulation code has the fidelity to provide accurate results with real-time performance.
  • Reduced Downtime: Accurate prediction of asset behaviour helps shape proactive maintenance, speed up the response by support teams and reduce downtime. The virtual environment can also be used for troubleshooting production performance issues.
  • Reliable Modeling Responses: MapleSim models of production systems can be supplemented with operational data and then used for quality testing, developing diagnostics when monitoring fleets in real-time, and for forecasting business metrics, such as yield, utilization, or throughput.
Click here to read more of the benefits of Digital Twins.

Getting Started with Digital Twins

Most companies are excited by the opportunity and efficiencies of adopting digital engineering techniques but struggle to transform multiple systems at once, leaving them cautious that they will actually achieve the business targets through the process.

Based on our experience supporting customers across a range of industries, we offer a MapleSim roadmap to success that builds from digital models to digital twins and allows you to:

  • Incrementally apply the simulation strategy in steps to align with your business goals.
  • Reap the benefits of completing the early simulation stages before making plans to progress further.

Throughout this process we recommend that you:

Determine your priority business objectives
Based on your operational pain-points and business needs you can review the applications of Digital Twins listed above and identify the most urgent. Contact Maplesoft Engineering Solutions to discuss the project options based on your budgets and timelines.
Start simple
The first step is creating a digital model to simulate your product, and this is easy to complete using the system-level components in MapleSim that distills the simulation of your product into the essential elements.
Adopt the virtual modeling environment for your offline testing
Once the virtual model is created, you can save time and money by using it to test and validate your physical prototype, your control code and even to assist with product enhancements and real-time troubleshooting. Click here to discover ways to connect your MapleSim model to your automation toolchain.
Lean on those with experience
Maplesoft's full-service solutions can provide your initial model and make it easy to implement digital twins, so you can use this powerful approach to diagnose, fix, and optimize machine performance.
Click here to read more of the applications of Digital Twins.

MapleSim Roadmap to Machine-level Digital Twins

MapleSim provides an efficient flexible modeling environment for developing your digital twin. Creating a MapleSim digital model gives a virtual representation of your product and is the first step to applying virtual commissioning and digital twins to digitally transform your operations.

The progressive solution roadmap provides a framework to meet your business objectives quickly, with realistic commitments from your internal resources.

MACHINE DESIGN

The MapleSim model acts as a virtual prototype, helping the designer to evaluate parameter sensitivity and general performance expectations and selecting components, such as gears and motors.

MACHINE CONTROL

As an essential component of modern virtual commissioning, the MapleSim model serves as a realistic simulation for fast, accurate PLC testing, ensuring that control design issues are ironed out before they reach the production floor.

MACHINE OPERATIONS

When combined with physical performance data, the MapleSim model becomes part of a Digital Twin and provides value-added features for your production processes, such as:

  • Assessing performance and optimizing operational throughput
  • Deploying Virtual Sensors to evaluate hard-to-measure parameters
  • Developing real-time diagnostics for machines and controllers
  • Corrective and predictive maintenance

IOT/FLEET OPERATIONS

Automating the operational data updates using a cloud based digital twin solution, lets you include a fleet of machines within the simulation of your industrial systems and facilities. This unlocks the cost-savings of predictive modeling, real-time failure detection and increased line throughput.

What do Fleet-level Digital Twins look like?

These blog articles show potential workflows when using MapleSim's powerful system-level modeling capabilities alongside cloud-based digital twins: