Digital Manufacturing in the Industrial Metaverse: The Industrial Metaverse revolutionizes the manufacturing industry by using digital twins, enabling precise simulations and optimizations in a virtual environment.
Use Cases: From factory simulations to CO2 footprint tracking in the supply chain, the Industrial Metaverse offers diverse applications on machine, enterprise, and business model levels.
Challenges and Future Outlook: Despite significant progress, companies are challenged to link individual digital twins into a seamless ecosystem to fully exploit the potential of the Industrial Metaverse.
How the Industrial Metaverse Revolutionizes Manufacturing: From Virtual Factories to Sustainable Digital Manufacturing.
The advancing development of the Industrial Metaverse marks a milestone in the digital evolution of the manufacturing industry. In a time when the construction of modern Smart Factories is orchestrated by globally distributed experts, the Metaverse enables simultaneous and collaborative planning in the virtual realm. This innovation is already becoming a reality, optimizing productivity and sustainability aspects before actual factory construction during the pandemic.
The fourth stage of Internet evolution, the Metaverse, brings together places, things, and people in a virtual environment where interactions and transactions take place. While B2C companies already offer virtual customer experiences, the Corporate Metaverse gains significance in the enterprise sector. Companies like Gucci have created virtual worlds, while Accenture utilizes the Metaverse for collaboration, learning, and onboarding.
However, the focus of the report is on the Industrial Metaverse, bridging the gap between the virtual and real world. Through the use of digital twins, especially in factory planning, companies like Siemens enable the simulation and optimization of workflows. This digital representation of physical objects and processes allows for precise planning, testing, and fine-tuning before the actual implementation in the real world.
The use cases of the Industrial Metaverse span three levels: on the machine or product level, the enterprise level, and the business model level. Factory simulations, quality control through digital twins, and blockchain-based tracking of the CO2 footprint in the supply chain are just a few examples.
Despite the progress, the Industrial Metaverse faces challenges before reaching full maturity. The linkage of individual digital twins into a comprehensive ecosystem is a desired goal that allows seamless exchange of digital representations of products and machines.
