The digital twin is the realistic, virtual image of machine, workpiece, production and performance. With the help of the digital twin, workpieces are validated in all their properties and production capability before they actually exist. This includes material properties, space requirements, stability, geometry, work equipment and much more. This enables, for example, critical production processes to be identified and optimized in advance. This leads to a significant increase in productivity and product quality.
 

Happy 10th Birthday

An essential component of the Multigrind® Horizon software is the digital twin. With every new Multigrind® grinding machine there has been a double increase in the family and today our Multigrind® twins are a necessary basis for many industry 4.0 applications. They revolutionize processes along the entire value chain and what began 10 years ago with a vision is now providing significantly more efficiency. Shorter development cycles, maximum error minimization and more flexibility - in short, in twin operation the competitiveness of our customers is sustainably increased.

The digital Multigrind® twins from Haas Schleifmaschinen are 10 years old. Time to document again what has happened in the last 10 years and where the journey is heading in the future.

The advantages of the digital Multigrind® twins at a glance:

Faster product development: Time savings in the planning and design of workpieces. Our customers can develop and produce much more flexibly, efficiently and individually. Coordination with suppliers and customers is significantly shortened by preliminary testing of product properties.

Optimized production: Relevant machine information is planned, tested and optimized virtually in advance through individual production steps. Thanks to our digital twins, even highly complex production processes are calculated, programmed and tested in advance in the shortest possible time and later compared with current machine data.

Smooth implementation: Previous simulations and tests already ensure error-free, optimized production in the planning phase. Possible errors, for example through a collision analysis, are detected and eliminated before the start of production.

Improved workpieces: Efficient modification of products by simulation, testing and validation of product properties in the digital environment. In this way, our customers create meaningful forecasts and better results - adapted to their individual requirements.

More detailed documentation: The improved quality management realizes additional potentials. Continuous optimization before and during production ensures greater efficiency and productivity from quantity 1 to smallest batch sizes to individual mass production.

High cost efficiency: In addition to increasing quality, enormous potentials can be realized along the entire process chain through shorter development and introduction times and faster production cycles, thus increasing competitiveness.

More know-how: The holistic view of design, machines, products, procedures and processes in real time leads the team to a deep understanding of new possibilities and the feasibility of future developments.

What are our plans for the future?

As the person responsible for software development at Haas Schleifmaschinen, Marie-Sophie Maier-Wember provides information on the next steps of the digital Multigrind® twins: "With our digital twins, we have created a precise virtual image of our Multigrind® series. The applications of the Multigrind® Horizon software are developing as rapidly as the market around us. We see potential in the progressing networking and the possibility to act even more autonomously in the future. Artificial intelligence will accelerate this process and provide even more interaction and communication between twins and machines. This automatically leads to even more independent optimizations in the production process. All these findings and results can then be shared across companies via jointly defined interfaces."

Marie-Sophie Maier-Wember predicts: "The logic in manufacturing will be reversed. It is no longer the machine that determines the process, but the workpiece. More precisely, the workpiece tells the machine what to do. The digital twins are fundamentally changing our industry, making companies more efficient and opening up new growth opportunities. The twins are already an essential building block for the implementation of your and our company's digital strategy".

Do you have any questions? Do you want to share your digital strategy with us? We like to share.