Digital Twins as an Open Platform for Graphical Visualization Tools
By Matthias Kohlbrand InThere is no way around Industry 4.0. We as software developers even have to stay ahead of the trends and requirements. Ultimately, it is the projects with our customers that turn a good concept into a technical advance.
Digital twins have been part of our Industry 4.0 strategy for some time. So far, they have always been used when the manufacturing process needs to be controlled with high availability. Digital twins are also ideally suited as a decentralized data platform when different systems and devices act as data sources for a workstation.
Most recently, such projects were mainly concerned with complex assembly processes, with connected intelligent tools and identification technologies. However, by acting as an open platform, the digital twin can not only receive data, but also return it. This works via an integrated REST interface that can be queried very easily using standardized transaction modules.
This allows visualizations with any tools and also completely customer-specific. No programming of interfaces is required, and even the burdensome database queries (for real-time data) are eliminated at this point. The Cosmino Digital Twin becomes the platform for the operational data of a workstation, and every customer can use this to the extent required.
Below are a few examples from recent projects
Example A: Key figures and status for a group of machines. Customized with Node-RED, an open source software for the representation of function modules according to the modular principle. This allows the current performance status of the machines to be quickly identified.
Example B: Display of order data, including machine status and process parameters on a timeline. Customized implemented with Grafana, an open source application for graphical representation of data. Even with multiple process parameters visualized, interactions between parameter progressions and machine status are clearly visible.
Another current project is the implementation of a customer-specific daily schedule dialog, for the
- • visualization of the open worklist,
- • recording of project phases and
- • status overview of the orders.
More details will follow in one of the next newsletters.