Product Processes based on Digital Twin

Abstract

Product development is performed by accomplished designers who make their best efforts to understand customer needs and desires via verbal or written feedback. This approach becomes cumbersome if a product design undergoes revolutionary changes. This paper focuses on how the potential of realtime simulation models based on Multibody System Dynamics or, in short, physics based Digital Twins, is utilized as a tool to interpret customers’ needs. The complete real-time simulation model can be seen as an interaction of several subsystems, such as environment, work process, mechanics, actuators, control system and user input. A mechanical subsystem based on the use of multibody system dynamics includes modeling of mechanical bodies, force elements acting between bodies, joints connecting bodies, and contacts. In this way, three main areas of product lifecycle are consistently covered. First, the benefits of the proposed approach are discussed in the Research & Development and Product Development section. Then comes service business, and finally, the authors discuss the effect of the approach in marketing and sales.