Would you want to:
- Invite prospects to your space 24/7?
- Capture and test processes with full visual context?
- Document customer interactions?
- Collaborate efficiently with teams?
- Fast-track sales?
If you answered YES to any of these, Digital Twin technology may be a crucial part of the answer to achieving your business and marketing objectives.
Digital Twin technology can help your business take advantage of and utilise physical assets (showrooms, event or exhibition spaces, factories, warehouses) in a Covid-19 world.
What is a Digital Twin?
Digital Twins are a 1:1 digital model of a real-life object, process or system. It is an increasingly popular concept that replicates a panorama that is explorable, much like Google Street View.
The concept of a Digital Twin came to fruition in 2002 by Dr Michael Grieves and John Vickers at the University of Michigan in 2002.
The concept was initially used by NASA who developed full-scale mock-ups of space capsules to detect problems in orbit, then the concept took off in 2008 when Gartner Gartner named digital twins as a technology trend, saying that “with an estimated 21 billion connected sensors and endpoints by 2020, digital twins will exist for billions of things in the near future.
How does a Digital Twin work?
A Digital Twin can be thought of as a link between the physical world with the digital world. The digital model is fed data, metrics and / or live sensor data to replicate the real-life object forming a ‘twin’; an exact digital replica.
Simple Digital Twin applications involve scanning and virtually modelling a room, space or object using digital technology cameras. These simulations offer 1:1 digital representation to use for re-modelling, consumer viewing or technical training.
More complex environments created by the Digital Twin provides a safe virtual environment to imitate and test the impact of changes to the data sets, product features, systems and processes in real time. The Digital Twin provides insights that can help highlight potential advantage of the modifications, as well as identify potential problems.
Uses of a Digital Twin:
The potential uses of Digital Twin technology are just about limitless. This unique process allows you to have a Digital Twin of your showroom, manufacturing plant or facility.
It is designed as an interactive visual library of media content including video content, weblinks to external webpages, downloadable PDF’s and strong CTA’s. Digital Twin’s can be live on your website and be accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to anyone with a smartphone, computer or tablet!
Manufacturing:
Do you often have the need for manufacturing plant tours? Opening up a factory for external visitors is often an operational nightmare; the safety precautions, the timings, and not to mention the factory cleanliness.
With Digital Twin technology the associated difficulties of factory tours can be halted. Developing a Digital Twin of a manufacturing plant can show your suppliers, stakeholders or customers a 1:1 digital model of your facility so they can explore from your office, their office or anywhere in the world.
The Digital Twin can store necessary information about manufacturing procedures, plant progress, and the exact status of specific projects so users can effectively gain insights to the running of the facility without needing to visit onsite.
Showrooms:
Similar to the benefits in manufacturing facilities, Digital Twins of your showroom can be created, allowing you to showcase your products 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Using digital camera technology, a dimensionally accurate 3D digital model of any room or building can be captured.
The user can then take an immersive virtual experience using the 3D digital model and tour the showroom no matter their location. This simplifies the client engagement process for companies who have the need for product interaction.
Events / Exhibitions:
Have you ever wanted to extend the life of your event or exhibition space? Countless months are spent planning and executing the perfect space for an event or exhibition, for it to be used for a day or two and then destroyed.
By creating a Digital Twin of your event or exhibition space, the life of your event can last for weeks, months or even years after the event is over. It also allows people not able to attend the event in person to still have an immersive experience with your digital 3D model.
Let them take the customer journey from their lounge room, they can watch live feeds, download product specifications, lodge communication tickets, and even make purchases through the realistic 1:1 model.
These 3D digital models also allow a company to track and analyse consumer behaviour within the space. Valuable metrics can be obtained including tracking the customer journey, measuring the time spent at each touch point and gathering demographic statistics. These findings can be used to not only improve further events or exhibitions but update the model to improve effectiveness prior to the next event.
Have you got an application where a Digital Twin would be useful for your brand?
How could a virtual replication of a physical object be used in your business?