The future is digital!

Acting as a virtual map of a production system, the digital twin bridges the gap between the digital world and the real manufacturing environment. It links together humans, machines and processes in real time and ensures greater efficiency and higher quality in the engineering and planning phase, during subsequent parts production as well as during training and instruction activities. In this way, users can harness digital technology in order to benefit fully from the existing potentials and generate the additional productivity that is of decisive importance for their businesses.

Bihler was quick to recognize the potentials of digitalization, and the world’s leading system supplier of stamping-and-bending, welding and assembly technology has been consistently further developing its portfolio of digital solutions over recent years. Nowadays, all users are able to benefit from an extensive set of digital tools and services that they can use precisely as required throughout the entire value-added chain: from the initial engineering and planning phase, through parts production itself and on to the accompanying training and support. The aim is clear: “With our smart product and automation solutions, we link the real world of stamping and forming technology to the digital world. These solutions work in real time to network products, machines and human beings and permit the cross-system use of all the data that is relevant for production,” explains Mathias Bihler. “In this way, the wastage and inefficiencies that are present in every company can be clearly revealed and targeted measures can be taken to eliminate them. As a result, all users are able to perform the development work faster, produce more efficiently and save valuable resources – and therefore also generate the additional productivity that is vitally important for keeping their businesses competitive.” And this extra productivity is easy to quantify: Practice has shown that users that take full advantage of Bihler’s digital technology are able to increase their productivity by an average of 20 percent.

Comprehensive database

The best way to go about unleashing these productivity potentials is the digital twin, which acts as a virtual map of the system and the entire manufacturing process. At Bihler, the digital twin is created on the basis of the engineering design data during the system development process. It forms the basis for the entire manufacturing process and supplies all the process data corresponding to each individual product. This data is stored so that it is available whenever needed. For every part, it is therefore possible to look back and identify areas which might harbor potential problems, for example in terms of the machined material. Even today, the digital twin is already available as standard for all high-tech manufacturing solutions, such as the BIMERIC servo production and assembly system – and in the future, Bihler will also supply digital twins for all new Bihler systems.

Virtual configuration

The digital twin of a Bihler system opens up a range of new possibilities because it can be used repeatedly for a range of specific purposes throughout the entire process chain. This starts during the engineering and planning stage, long before the actual production operations begin. During this phase, the entire system can be optimally configured down to the tiniest detail. Possible malfunctions and sources of error are therefore immediately revealed and can be eliminated as early as the design phase. And, of course, the digital twin can also be used to play through and optimize a wide range of different production processes, designs and prototypes before they go live. This further increases the quality of Bihler systems, meaning that customers take possession of outstandingly reliable, high-performance Bihler solutions that offer them the greatest possible process reliability and product quality. However, they also save an enormous amount of time because the digital twin ensures not only trouble-free but also particularly rapid real-life commissioning of the system.

Optimization during live operation

Once the Bihler system is running and producing parts, the digital twin can significantly increase production efficiency and help operators take full advantage of optimization potentials at the machine and in the manufacturing process. To assist in this, Bihler can provide various digital tools, which are also available in the “Bihler Digital App”, for example in the form of a dashboard and an Analysis module. This displays the current machine status in real time so that the machine data can be filtered and processed, for example in order to produce trend statistics. The “Job management” module is equally useful. This allows users to create, edit and plan jobs conveniently at their desks and then feed them digitally into the production environment. Changes and adaptations to the system can also be simulated and implemented quickly and efficiently in the digital twin directly at the desktop computer in the user’s office, without there being any need to work at the actual machine. This is possible thanks to the “Offline VC 1-programming” module which, for example, is ideal for programming new tools or configuring existing ones. “All the functions, analyses and programming activities can run during live operation without it being necessary to shut down the machine and halt operation,” emphasizes Mathias Bihler. By optimizing the production processes using the digital twin, it is also possible to reduce material usage and energy consumption. And last but not least, the real-time data also permits predictive maintenance and more efficient planning and these, in turn, help reduce maintenance costs.

For training and instruction activities

And even after live production has started at the Bihler system, the digital twin continues to show its value, in particular when performing feasibility and project studies as well as for training and instruction activities. All of this is possible reusing the animations and simulations of the manufacturing process that have already been created. These permit a purely virtual, almost playful exploration of the Bihler system in real time, free from all the limitations that constrain training at the actual machine. In this way, all users can try out the various scenarios and machine parameters in a secure virtual environment. One very important feature is the capability to play through the complete programming of the axis movements of the NC units at the touch of a button in the “Offline VC 1-programming” module. The “Animation” module is also perfectly suited for training and familiarization purposes. It permits the visualization of complete production systems as well as individual assemblies or tools, which can then be animated based on game engineering principles. In this way, the complete production process can be observed from strip feed through to the end product and additional information, such as settings sheets or instructions, can also be stored in the application.

Profitable for all parties

“The purpose of our digital solutions and the digital twin is to simplify production and increase production efficiency for all users. They make a major contribution to the manufacture of reproducible, uniformly high-quality parts. They are intelligent solutions that enable even less highly qualified personnel to maintain outstanding production quality,” continues Mathias Bihler. “And if a customer does ever experience a problem, we can use the digital twin of the system to perform a fault analysis and eliminate the malfunction without any loss of time, because there is no longer any need for a service employee to travel to the customer’s premises.” The ordering of spare parts is equally simple and efficient. Bihler itself also benefits from the digital twin because the data for every component and every part is transparently available and provides the basis for subsequent optimizations or adaptations. “The digital world and the digital twin therefore help us and our customers to go on improving and effectively differentiate ourselves from the other actors in the market,” is how Mathias Bihler sums up. And all of this will be even more effective in the future because the next development stage will be to use algorithms to link the digital twin to Artificial Intelligence. One example of this might be a self-teaching control loop, for example to compensate for differences in the material in a batch, with integrated sensors recording the current values in real time and automatically adapting the production process via the corresponding actuators.