Digital Twins in Automotive Industry: Improving Manufacturing Efficiency

Digital Twin in automotive manufacturing are the tools that build cars, bikes, commercial vehicles, and OEMs (virtual replicas) before they are built physically. These tools can even create factory layouts, manufacturing process simulations, vehicle test simulations, etc., before they come into existence physically. Earlier, it took engineers and car designers multiple attempts to test car models for mishaps or crash resistance. It involved money, time, and a real car that had to be sacrificed. But then the digital twin tech hit the markets, and car manufacturers can use them for testing everything from the acceleration of a car to its crash abilities. The virtual replicas of car models interact similarly to the real ones.

Digital twins in the automotive industry are improving manufacturing efficiency and eliminating various design & test approval bottlenecks.

As a leading provider of automotive software development services - a key driver of digital twin technology, we at X-Byte bring here our years of experience working with some of the best in the automotive sector.

Let’s understand what makes digital twin a catalyst in improving manufacturing efficiency in the automotive industry.

Digital Twins Automotive Industry: An Overview

A staggering $30 trillion in corporate revenues depends on products that haven’t reached the market. What it means for organizations is to include approaches that help them derive value from these investments and outcompete their competitors. Digital-product-development approaches are enablers for this. A survey by global consulting firm McKinsey highlights that 75% of product development executives considered digitization as a key priority, of which digital twin incorporation is a key aspect.

What if I tell you that you can experience the kick of Formula 1 in real time with a virtual replica of your car that mirrors every single turn, acceleration, and engine performance without you even stepping into the vehicle? Digital twins do exactly this and much more. With Digital Twin technology, you can get a heightened degree of certainty on the possibilities, risks, threats, loopholes, and help in data-driven decision-making. A digital twin is a risk-free, low-cost option that aids the automotive sector through continuous synchronization of data with the system and processes. Physical entity.

The digital twin tech in automotive has been gladly embraced by giants like Renault, Mercedes, BMW, etc. These automakers are reconfiguring their assembly lines and prototypes by shifting to digital twins for production process simulation and testing. For instance, Mercedes-Benz uses digital twin technology to strategize, adjust, and scale up the manufacturing processes for its new MMA platform at its facilities located in Rastatt (Germany), Kecskemét (Hungary), and Beijing (China).

The BMW Group already uses more than 100 of these applications. Virtualization is just one example. All production sites have been fully captured in a 3D scan – this creates a digital twin that you can virtually walk through in any location at any time, in real-time, across different locations and different time zones.

Digital twins in the automotive industry are used for their potential to trace vehicle, product, and system performance. It is a potent tool for automotive organizations to keep a check on potential hazards and make amends before bringing vehicle products to the market, thus saving brand reputation and eliminating hazards.

Here’s How the Digital Twin in Manufacturing Is Driving Efficiency

Organizations have understood the potential that Digital twins hold. A survey by McKinsey reveals that adopting Digital twins in manufacturing can improve the decision-making speed by up to 90 percent.

Let’s understand how Digital twins drive impact for organizations in the automotive sector and the benefits of digital twin technology in the automotive industry.

Automotive Design

In the process of vehicle development, the design team creates visual and structural aspects, such as shape, colors, and materials, while ensuring a seamless blend of beauty and functionality.

At Renault, their design team creates a 'part' of the digital twin by constructing virtual models that represent the future vehicle's exterior and interior. These various prototype models aim to achieve an optimal display and finish using advanced digital rendering tools. These tools provide highly detailed and lifelike visuals. Designers can assess the appearance and perceived quality of the vehicle's bodywork and interior using just the virtual model (digital twin).

Fast-Tracked Development

In the automation sector, digital twins are used to make virtual replicas of vehicles and the environment in which they are performing. This includes everything from real-time performance monitoring and predictive maintenance to aerodynamics testing and crash simulations. When such data is available, real-world driving conditions become possible, and different test scenarios like emergency braking, collision avoidance, and adverse weather simulations without the need for physical prototypes, leading to high speed of development and better safety.

High-Precision Performance Monitoring

The biggest advantage of Digital Twin in manufacturing is the ability to monitor the performance of vehicles, components, and entire systems in real-time, enabled by Automotive Software Development Services, which thus helps predict failures.

The businesses in the automotive segment can use real-time simulation capabilities of ditil twin ecology using IoT sensors, real-time analytics, and simulation models to mimic assembly lines and achieve better production processes, increased throughput, and predictive maintenance. Additionally, the absence of human intervention decreases the chances of any potential human errors regarding judgment or decision-making.

Enabling Quality Control

In the automotive sector, quality is a by-product of pre-emptive problem-solving, problem resolutions before the product release, and real-time monitoring. The real-time virtual replicas of vehicles and assembly lines created by Digital Twins are based on the data received from sensors and IoT devices. The combination of digital twins and AI ML development services smoothens the production processes and ensures that every vehicle meets stringent quality standards.

Eliminating Resource Wastages

The similar advantage of digital twins empowers automotive organizations to make the right decisions before the vehicle becomes ready physically. The reduction of physical prototypes cuts costs and saves on resources used in production. All this is possible because of integrating AI ML development services with digital twins, where vehicle performance, component durability, and production processes are tested in a virtual environment. Additionally, the ability of AI to continuously refine its models means that any slight deviations from optimal performance are quickly corrected.

Achieving Efficiency Through Predictive Maintenance

Since digital twins are based on real-time data and simulations, any discrepancies or potential maintenance issues are quickly identified, and the lifespan of the automotive systems, products, and vehicles is increased. Predictive modeling enables automotive companies to keep track of what’s possible in the future and identify potential failure points, enabling preemptive maintenance actions.

Skilled Workforce With The Power of Digital Twin

Organizations have understood the impact of digital twins in empowering their workforce. Organizations can reduce the chance of accidents by virtually training staff with Digital Twin-powered simulations so that the workers get trained on the necessary skills before actual work on equipment, thus accelerating worker efficiency.

Improving Supply Chain Optimization

What if you get an almost real-life view of what’s going on with your supply chain, minute by minute? Digital twins do exactly that by bringing real-world scenarios to life through simulation, where it consolidates real-time data from production, logistics, and inventory systems into a single virtual model.

It aids in providing a visual view of what the logistics would look like and what potential bottlenecks are during the movement of raw materials. This analysis brings clarity and caution in executing orders and reduces the time to delivery. Automotive companies can respond quickly to supplier issues, transportation delays, or market fluctuations through the advanced analytics and simulation capabilities of Digital Twins.

Aiding Customization and Personalization

Customers are inclined to get vehicles that are customized to their liking. Acxiom’s 2023 automotive customer experience study reveals that 74% of respondents to a survey stated that personalized experiences would influence their next car purchase. Digital twins in the automotive industry add efficiency to personalization and reduce the time to delivery by providing detailed virtual replicas of vehicles, simulating the specific design preferences, which can include minute details ranging from exterior aesthetics to interior ergonomics.

What’s New in the Automotive Digital Twins Space?

The Digital Twin technology in manufacturing is being used at an accelerated pace for redefining the automotive space. An automotive company in the USA is ready to build a system that brings the models of their software and hardware configurations to simulate the effect of design improvements before they are delivered to customers. Let’s see the various types of digital twins and the potential they hold for the automotive industry.

Automotive Systems Twins

System twins are digital twins of automotive systems that help in achieving reduced cost and increased productivity. They are replicas of automotive systems and virtual models of manufacturing systems, which have enabled higher throughput and improved customer experience by strengthening the systems from supply-and-demand shocks

Leading management consulting firm McKinsey reiterated the advantage of the digital twin in reducing transportation costs and labor by 10 percent. The incorporation of digital twins has helped the automotive sector to lie up to the customer’s demand by up to 20 percent.

Customer Digital Twins

What if you not only know the pulse of your customer but also make vehicles by tapping into their behaviors, patterns, and exact responses? Customer digital twins are the next big thing in the automotive sector, where top-line growth becomes possible.

Customer digital twins have been known to bring revenue increases of almost 10 percent for organizations. Mercedes-Benz has innovative customer twins that help customers know what it feels like to drive a vehicle without getting in the car!

Product Digital Twins

When automotive ghosts adopt digital twins, they can create and test vehicle designs in a virtual environment and see a sharp cut in development times while reducing costs along the way. Additionally, monitoring production lines, predicting equipment failures, and ensuring process optimization becomes a lot easier through the rapid iterations and optimization capability of digital twins.

When you get real-time information from sensors, IoT devices, and connected vehicle technologies that capture real-time data like temperature, engine performance, tire pressure, battery health, etc, the best product becomes easier.

Data Twin

Automotive data twin is a virtual representation of real-time data from the vehicle for easy movement on the road. All the data from the vehicles is continuously updated with IoT sensors, onboard diagnostics, cloud computing, and AI-driven analytics to bring the best result and optimize performance, efficiency, and safety.

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Future of Digital Twin in the Automotive Manufacturing

Gen AI is being used with digital twin technology to change the paradigms in the automotive industry. Generative AI can be used to structure the inputs and synthesize outputs of digital twins, which can lead to the creation of a robust test-and-learn environment.

Digital twins in the automotive sector are being coupled with various upcoming innovative technologies to further productivity and efficiency in the automotive sector. Automotive organizations can see the exponential result by assigning large language models to create automatic codes for a digital twin using software development platforms.

5 Key areas where Digital Twins will be used extensively in the future:

• Virtual prototyping
• Design iterations
• Assembly line optimization
• Quality control
• Crash Testing Simulations

AI-driven automation, real-time data analytics, and autonomous vehicle development are the future of digital twins in automation, and automotive organizations must incorporate this to stay ahead of the curve.

The Benefits of digital twin technology in the automotive industry have the potential to take automotive organizations ahead of their competitors through the preemptive insights it offers and the results it brings. Future-focused companies in the automotive, aerospace, and defense to technology, retail, and consumer goods and C-suite technology executives have already adopted digital twin technology because of the immense possibilities it promises.

Organizations are now partnering with experts in automotive software development services and custom manufacturing software development solutions to see the growth. It’s high time to harness the potential of digital twins as a means to achieve holistic organizational efficiency.

Wrapping Up

X-Byte is leading the charge by delivering automotive software development services and custom manufacturing software development solutions, using AI-driven analytics, IoT integration, and real-time data processing. We have been in the business of empowering automakers with predictive maintenance, autonomous vehicle simulation, and smart manufacturing optimization, where the focus is on bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds.

X-Byte Enterprise Solutions is revolutionizing the future of mobility through automotive innovation, ensuring industry-leading performance and efficiency.

Accelerate innovation and implement digital twin technology in your automotive business with X-Byte.