LIVE FROM TECHEX EUROPE, AMSTERDAM: Experts from Unilever, Volvo Trucks and L’Oreal Group extolled the benefits of digital twins, and outlined key initial steps and pitfalls to avoid in early adoption.

Fielding a question on how to get started in a digital twin journey in a session on the uses for the technology, Unilever global lead enterprise architect Dominic Maidment (pictured, second from left) emphasised the need to start with a clear goal.

“Define your business problem.”

“Are you trying to make more money? Are you trying to make things better? In some way improve the quality? Are you trying to do something faster? Decide on those things, work out what data is available. If the data doesn’t exist, then maybe you need to create those data points”.

He added the latter should also “align with your corporate strategies around data governance, ethical guard rails in terms of the nature of that data, and then make sure that you’ve got your engineering teams talking to your strategic teams”.

L’Oreal head of Europe Insights Factory Chitresh Sharma (pictured, second from right) highlighted the need for KPIs, adding “the investment versus the return on investment, or at least the return of experience, clearly has to be established before jumping in”.

He added the momentum of a deployment could be lost at the start and it is “important to explore first, start small and scale fast”.

Although also pointing to the importance of focusing on a problem to solve with twins, Ivan Branco, head of information management, BI and analytics at Volvo Group Trucks Operations (pictured, right), was bullish on the technology’s ability to create wider value for an organisation.

“Digital twins have an exceptional ability that you don’t need to use them necessarily to solve a problem,” Branco said, noting they have a “magic place” where they can operate on multiple levels within a business.

A “digital reproduction of your processes” can help “identify challenges or opportunities”, he said.

Management buy-in
Earlier in the panel, the Volvo executive discussed what could be the thorny issue of getting backing for projects from senior figures.

“Top management always speak the money language. So, it’s a good opportunity because digital twin implementation is not that expensive” once the data quality is there.

Noting it is a lot less expensive than building a new factory and “trying to see how it can be the most optimal facility in the world”, he added “it reduces the investment you need to do, it reduces the time in terms of calculating the space you need. It’s actually a very good opportunity to improve your financials”.

Though he cautioned “if you need to convince your top management then there’s already problems”, noting at Volvo the move toward new technologies came from the top down.