Digital Twin

Increasing plant complexity requires more sophisticated ways of approaching KPI's and targets. In process industry applications, the ability to use technology to make better decisions faster is vital for delivering superior results. One such technology, which can be applied in multiple ways, is a digital twin.

What is a digital twin?

A digital twin is a digital representation of a human, device, system, or process, that mirrors the actual process and has full knowledge of its historical performance. By simulating devices, systems, or processes to predict future performance, digital twins drive agility and convergence of understanding to enable effective decision-making and determine strategies to maximize safety, reliability, and profitability. The digital twin captures data to determine real-time performance, which can be used across the entire lifecycle of an asset for optimization and predictive maintenance.

Digital twins:

Drive improvements through advanced data analytics and operational insight
Guide day-to-day decisions with in-depth, accurate data
Utilize massive amounts of plant information to enable better decision-making
Ensure actual performance meets planned performance

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The Benefits of Digital Twins

More Effective Decision-Making

Experts can review recommended strategies to assess the impact of each recommended approach.

Improved Safety & Reliability

Digital twins mimic asset performance, which can be used to predict failures and avoid risks; this improves worker safety and plant reliability.

Increased Profitability

The digital twin allows “What if?” and “What’s best?” scenarios to be run simultaneously to determine available strategies that maximize profitability.

Digital twins also offer value in operational efficiency and insights into how products are used and how they can be improved:

Field and line employees have the information they need to understand the bottom-line impact of their day-to-day choices
Information flows across organizational boundaries
Second-guessing of decisions is minimized
Unit issues are identified and resolved faster
Lost profit opportunities are minimized
Performance gap visibility is improved
Modeling, visualization and reporting tools are seamlessly integrated

Yokogawa's Digital Twin Solutions

Enterprise Insight

A series of business and financial Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are updated in real-time, plan versus actual, as part of an enterprise-wide balanced scorecard for corporate situational awareness. Advanced logic is applied to real-time operations data to project current and future understanding of the business for executives.

Capability Assurance

Key operator actions are captured, controlled and manipulated in real-time through monitoring and control of work processes. Minimize the learning curve for new operators, support change management and enable vastly improved scenario validation through operator training simulation and an ISA106-compliant modular procedure automation solution.

Advanced Production

Multivariable predictive controls drive the plant continuously to its optimum constraints by reacting to disturbances in a closed loop.

Value Chain Optimization

Drive agile and efficient alignment of supply of premium products as closely as possible to market demand with sufficient resilience or operational flexibility to readily adjust production and exploit market opportunities through supply chain planning, scheduling and production accounting.

Automation and Control Integrity

Digital representation of the live plant and its automation algorithms through the “twin” function of an Integrated Control and Safety System (ICSS) allows engineers to conduct fundamental process control tests at an engineering workstation, as well as any proposed adjustments before they are applied on the live plant.

Instrumentation and Equipment Productivity

Minimize the need for breakdown and preventative maintenance, reduce OPEX through advanced online monitoring and prediction of field device health, and process interface conditions that reduce unnecessary trips.

Advanced Chemistry

Highly intelligent devices, such as pumps, flowmeters, transmitters, and chemical analyzers provide total insight into their ongoing performance as well as the ability to adapt to changing duty requirements throughout the measurement device lifecycle.

Plant Process Optimization

Online and offline high-fidelity models for non-linear performance monitoring, simulation, and optimization using first principle kinetics deliver optimized yield performance, flow assurance, energy efficiency improvement, enhanced reliability and operator capability assurance.