Up close and personal with the digital twin

Fish meets steel – or, more precisely, fresh salmon meets rotating blades. It isn’t exactly clear how the machine gets tonnes of aquaculture-raised adult salmon into rows and onto the filleting line so quickly. “It’s all about physics,” says Thomas Raths. The Head of Automation in the Research and Development Department at BAADER isn’t showing the video of the Norwegian salmon factory at a food trade fair. Instead, it’s part of a presentation on the industrial metaverse.

“It’s a buzzword,” Raths says. For this holder of a degree in engineering, the industrial metaverse is mainly about working with so-called “digital twins”, which help to reduce risks and test new prototypes before they are put to use in the real world. “Validating and verifying machines virtually” is the specialist jargon for technical test procedures. Depending on what one wants to simulate – and at what financial expense – entire factories, specific processes or just individual machines are modelled in a digital twin. “You need to choose the option that offers the most practical solution,” Raths emphasises.

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Close cooperation with Siemens

For big players like Siemens, this can be an entire factory that is first modelled virtually and then fed real-world product data. This has already made processes faster and more economical at the factory in Erlangen. Modelling also makes it easier to plan new factories, Raths notes, adding: “Before the factory is built, tests are performed on which machines and productions steps need to be where.” The Munich-based technology group likes to showcase BAADER as a success story. Since 2021, BAADER has relied on simulation using digital twins to develop special machines for food processing – with a Siemens-built controller.

Since then, expertise has been built up at the Research and Development Department at the Luebeck location. Mechanics, electricians and IT specialists are working side by side to initially develop and test new fish processing machines virtually. While friction, mass, and inertia in mechanical kinematics are well-suited for simulation, the interaction between tools and fish is a significant challenge. After all, fish isn’t steel, salmon isn’t herring, and not all herring are the same. Differences in size as well as seasonal and regional influences need to be taken into account in the model. “Simulating the interaction between tool, machine and fish is our topic for the future,” Raths says.

The factory of the future

The industrial metaverse is a key issue for the future, and even if it isn’t always referred to under this umbrella term, it’s something happening in all sectors. To set themselves apart from the gaming world and social networks, companies prefer to talk about the “digital factory” or “factory of the future”. This can mean the drill that does not even switch on at a point where no hole needs to be drilled, a laser pointer that shows which screw needs to be tightened next, or digital training material that apprentices can experiment with using VR goggles before daring to work with the expensive genuine material.

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Industrial Metaverse as a plus in recruiting

Digitalization is part of the business model at BAADER, and fish processing is to be automated. “There actually aren’t enough people who want to do this anymore in the places where the fish are processed,” Raths says. On the other hand, for the Research and Development Department, using the phrase “industrial metaverse” can be a plus when it comes to attracting young IT specialists to Luebeck. “These are complex tools that require in-depth expertise in the natural sciences,” Raths notes. Simulation expertise doesn’t have to be quite as deep when using digital twins for virtual commissioning in the initial approach.

This makes BAADER not only a technology leader, but also a role model for other. “We’re making good progress, but a lot of SMEs are still thinking about it,” is Raths’ conclusion from presentations and trade fair visits. His advice is to take a close look at the industrial metaverse and sound out its potential, adding that: “It’s never too late to get on board.” The journey into the future has just begun.

This is an abridged version of an article by Deike Uhtenwoldt from the magazine “Standpunkte” of Nordmetall, the employers’ association of the metal and electrical industries.