Abstract

Shortening lifecycles and increasing complexity make product and production lifecycle processes more challenging than ever for manufacturing enterprises. Virtual Prototyping (VP) technologies promise a viable solution to handle such challenges in reducing time and physical builds as well as increasing quality. In previous studies, the Digital Twin (DT) based Virtual Factory (VF) concept showed significant potential to handle co-evolution by integrating 3D factory and product models with immersive and interactive 3D Virtual Reality (VR) simulation technology as well as real-time bidirectional data synchronisation between virtual and physical production systems. In this article, we present an extension to the paper “Demonstrating and Evaluating the Digital Twin Based Virtual Factory for Virtual Prototyping” presented at CARV2021. The study presents an evaluation by industry experts of the DT based VF concept for VP in the context of New Product Introduction (NPI) processes. The concept is demonstrated in two cases: wind turbine blade manufacturing and nacelle assembly operations at Vestas Wind Systems A/S. The study shows that the VF provides an immersive virtual environment, which allows the users to reduce the time needed for prototyping. The industry experts propose several business cases for the introduced solution and find that the phases that would have the most gain are the later ones (production) where the product design is more mature.

Highlights

  • Forces like innovation and technology, competition, changing demands, and regulations are among the main dynamics that shape the evolution of industries [1]

  • 20 interviewees participated in the demonstration and evaluation of the Digital Twin (DT) based Virtual Factory (VF) concept in Virtual Prototyping (VP)

  • The expert discussions on the evaluation of DT based VF roamed around four terms, representing some of the main activities of New Product Introduction (NPI)

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Summary

Introduction

Forces like innovation and technology, competition, changing demands, and regulations are among the main dynamics that shape the evolution of industries [1]. Physical prototype builds are often highly time-consuming, costly, and complex due to the uncertain and genuine nature of models and operations. When it comes to the wind industry, wind turbine generator (WTG) manufacturing covers a wide variety of production and manufacturing operations, such as heavy metal manufacturing (towers), large-size fiberglass composite material production (blades), complex and heavy parts assembly (gearbox, nacelle, generator, etc.), and electrical and electronic systems manufacturing (control and grid infeed systems). Physical prototype builds during the New Product Introduction (NPI) are becoming much more challenging for companies such as Vestas Wind Systems A/S (later Vestas). Generator, and nacelle manufacturing shares similar genetics with the automotive and heavy machinery industries, the converter and control systems of WTGs incorporate similar approaches to those of various electrical and electronic manufacturing industries

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