With the continued innovation and progress surrounding digital twin technology, more capabilities are becoming apparent. Digital twin technology is a 3D virtual replica of a system, place, or thing. Gartner defines digital twins as “a digital representation of a real-world entity or system in an encapsulated software object or model that mirrors a unique physical object, process, organization, person or other abstraction.”
Industry Week even puts forth a new iteration of digital twin technologies, “Virtual twins”. Virtual twins offer an even more evolved technology that is not limited to a mathematical model of an object or a system, but instead, it considers entire systems, including the environment in which the physical object exists.
However, while digital twin technology is evolving rapidly, it is still too focused on a machine viewpoint. It is still situated for structured data that is easy to process and model, while unstructured data generated by human elements remain largely, though not entirely, to the side. The concept of an Industrial Internet of People, or IIoP, can help bring the human aspect into digital twin technology.
The Industrial Internet of People
The way things and people interact is fundamentally different. People care about privacy—things don’t. People can choose what they like—things can’t. How machines and devices “talk” and interact in the industrial sector has evolved massively in recent years, but there is an enormous gap in this “smart” industry. There’s a lack of consideration for humanity.
This is where IIoP comes into play.
IIoP accounts for workers’ needs and real-time experiences in the field or on the factory floor. It provides a way for organizations to develop and improve worker safety and productivity by collecting, analyzing, and acting upon the real-time and unstructured and structured data generated by people and machines. IIoP ensures that through connectivity and connected solutions life- and production-critical information remains close to the worker at all times.
True Digital Twins
By using IIoP, organizations can evolve past the current application and limits of digital twin technology – creating a true digital twin that accounts for not only machines or environments, but the people that make operations a success.
True digital twins open the door between “things” and people, enabling the consideration of human interaction with technology, not just the actions of technology itself. This allows the creation of effective, efficient, and safe virtual scenarios of human interactions with machines accounting for the changeable nature of people in addition to machine and environmental factors.
Through digital twin technology, we can proactively respond to potential dangers from human errors and technical faults. By testing, developing, and optimizing processes and procedures in virtual simulations people remain safe, and human interactions with machines are tested before workers ever physically interact with an asset.
True digital twins are designed to account for and recognize that humans, not machines, are the driving force of industry. The benefits of true digital twins include:
- More efficient design discovery at lower costs
- Improved team collaboration
- Improved worker health and safety
True digital twin technology is the future of industrialization. It will provide organizations with the ability to optimize safety and production and by implementing this technology organizations will advance along a path toward a better, safer workplace of the future.
About Guardhat
Guardhat is pioneering end-to-end connected worker safety solutions for industrial workers. We offer cutting-edge, wearable technology; a proprietary connected worker platform – unrivaled in its ability to ingest, manage and analyze unstructured data; easy-to-deploy monitoring and reporting software; and a growing system of partner integrations.
Guardhat enables companies to monitor worker location, health, and work environment to shorten reaction time and help proactively solve safety challenges. We hold 15 patents in real-time location systems, wearable solution design, and connected worker software.
If you are interested in our connected safety solutions – including situational awareness, environmental and biometric monitoring, lone worker, multi-modal communication, RTLS, and other advanced technology solutions – contact us to arrange a demo.
