A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical asset, process or system that enables businesses to simulate real-world conditions, predict problems before they occur, and uncover optimization opportunities. While the concept has been around for decades, advancements in IoT, AI and computing power have brought digital twins to the forefront as a transformational technology across industries.
According to research firm Gartner, 75% of Fortune 500 companies will be using digital twins by 2025. The global market is also poised for massive growth, expected to reach $48 billion by 2026 according to Reports and Data. But beyond the numbers, it‘s the breakthrough innovations unlocked by digital twins that reveal their immense potential.
Manufacturing Forges Ahead with Digital Twins
Manufacturing stands at the leading edge of digital twin adoption. By mirroring production environments and system performance in a virtual space, manufacturers can achieve new heights of speed, agility and efficiency.
Siemens uses digital twin technology across its plants to dynamically optimize machinery performance and enable predictive maintenance. The company estimates over €1 billion in cost savings from reduced downtime and streamlined operations. Food processing giant Teys Australia implemented digital twins from UL Solutions to simulate performance across three new beef processing plants. The virtual testing led to faster commissioning, reduced downtime and 30% lower project costs overall.
At the vanguard, digital twins are accelerating product innovation cycles in automotive, aerospace and complex machinery. Airbus leverages a digital twin, encompassing 1.5 million parts over an aircraft‘s 30-year lifecycle, to achieve first-time-right manufacturing. Automakers like Volkswagen apply digital twins across the product lifecycle, enabling mass customization down to a lot size of one.
Automakers leverage digital twins to accelerate design, customization and predictive maintenance (Image credit: MBition)
Revolutionizing Patient Care with Healthcare Digital Twins
In healthcare, digital twins are paving the way for more predictive, preventative and personalized care.
As outlined in Deloitte‘s Digital Twin in Life Sciences report, advanced simulations of human physiology and disease progression can dramatically improve clinical trials and speed new drug development. Meanwhile, hospital digital twins provide rich operational insights – from optimizing patient pathways to hospital layouts and resource planning.
Philips has been an early mover with digital twin capabilities across its portfolio, from MRI scanners to cardiac patient monitoring. Its MRI Smart Scan Suite leverages a digital twin to simplify complex exams and provide technicians with step-by-step guidance matched to different patient needs.
As computational models of human biology become ever more sophisticated, the promise of "in-silico" clinical trials and personalized digital therapeutics grows nearer each day.
Aerospace Reaches New Heights with Digital Twins
Digital transformation in aerospace aims to not only enhance safety and efficiency, but to open up new frontiers of innovation.
Airbus set out on its digital twin journey over a decade ago with an industry-first cabin digital mockup. Today it has an integrated digital thread connecting airline customers, parts suppliers and flying assets together to enable predictive maintenance across an aircraft‘s decades-long service. Airbus isn‘t alone – Boeing, Embraer and jet engine makers are making big digital twin investments as well.
NASA is pushing boundaries even further with its AMES digital twin, a virtual model of the physical Ames Research Center campus. Beyond facility optimizations, NASA scientists leverage the digital twin for pioneering research – from testing autonomous vehicle movements to modeling viral transmission risks across buildings.
As aerospace digital twins grow ever more interconnected, the industry moves towards an ecosystem platform model described by Deloitte as the Connected Aircraft Digital Twin. Bringing together OEMs, suppliers and service partners, next-gen platforms aim to enable mass customization, open innovation between players big and small, and ultimately transform the economics of aerospace.
Digital Supply Chains Deliver End-to-End Transparency
Global supply chains have only grown more complex, precarious and business-critical. Digital twin solutions bring much needed resilience, visibility and coordination across far-flung distribution networks.
TransVoyant‘s digital twin delivers supply chain visibility via a virtual control tower (Image credit: Transvoyant)
Singapore‘s port operator PSA implemented a system-wide digital twin, encompassing port operations, vessel traffic and cargo flows. The solution delivers rich insights for predictive analytics, capacity simulations and developing management strategies.
TransVoyant goes several steps further with its Digital Voyage Twin platform, providing an integrated supply chain control tower for global shippers. The SaaS-based digital twin maps out the perfect route for a shipment, monitors for disruptions, enables collaboration between ports and carriers, and offers end-to-end visibility across transport modalities.
Big Wind Gets a Digital Twin
Renewable energy poses complex design trade-offs given variability in site conditions and wind flow. Digital twins have emerged as invaluable decision support tools for wind farm planning.
GE Renewable Energy leverages digital twins extensively in onshore and offshore wind farm development. Its system integrates environmental, turbine performance and operational data to run endless permutations for optimal energy output, cost efficiency and site selection. Software simulations compress years of real-world assessments into weeks.
As the digital twin concept moves offshore, grid operators also reap major benefits. The European Union backed a €15 million research project called EDDY (short for offshore wind farm EDge expansionDYnamic digital twin), which developed an advanced software toolkit for modeling regional wind conditions and power supply fluctuations based on different expansion scenarios. The digital twin has already supported grid planning and policy decisions for proposed offshore wind sites.
Retail Gets Personal with Digital Twins
Consumer-facing industries like retail grapple with fickle shopper loyalty and elusive insight into purchase drivers. Digital twins provide a window into customer behavior to unlock personalization at scale.
Zara owner Inditex, the world‘s largest fast fashion retailer, has heavily invested in digital twin capabilities to accelerate design prototyping, store layout optimization and demand forecasting. Its virtual product development process compresses design-to-shelf lead times from weeks to days. By predicting best-selling items for its global retail empire, Inditex moves over $3 billion of inventory each year to locations where demand is highest.
Digital twins enable retailers to simulate the ideal shopping experience tailored to customer needs (Image credit: Dassault Systèmes)
Meanwhile Dassault Systèmes and Accenture developed My Retail Twin, a digital twin-based advisory platform for omnichannel strategy. Retailers can model innovations from self-checkout to experiential store layouts, gaining data-backed insights to optimize operations and better resonate with shifting consumer expectations.
Conclusion: Digital Twins Deliver a Competitive Edge
Across sectors, digital twin adoption is accelerating as enterprises recognize their potential to reimagine business models, boost performance and align decision-making to strategic goals. While upfront technology investments can be significant, those taking the digital twin plunge position themselves at the frontier – with the resilience, agility and competitive edge needed to thrive amid constant turbulence and change.
