Early days for digital twins in the supply chain
Summary
One key is understanding what distinguishes a digital twin from a model or simulation, which a number of experts said is its ability to query data and truly learn something about the thing that it represents. "There are many challenges when products and processes outside the boundaries of the organization are concerned," said Vishnu Andhare, consulting manager of engineering services at ISG, a technology research and advisory firm. In this context a digital supply network twin could make it easier to simulate the different disruptive outcomes and risk mitigation scenarios and the consequences of response actions on the enterprise and the ecosystem. They send data on everything from temperature to production cycle times to its digital twin software, which Unilevers engineering team created in partnership with Microsoft partner The Marsden Group. This makes it easier to predict and respond to the impact of major events like a regional earthquake that may affect multiple nodes of a supply chain at the same time.