Bettering the sustainability of producing includes optimizing complete product lifecycles — from materials sourcing and transportation to design, manufacturing, distribution and end-of-life disposal.
In line with the Worldwide Vitality Company, lowering the carbon footprint of commercial manufacturing by simply 1% might save 90 million tons of CO₂ emissions yearly. That’s equal to taking greater than 20 million gasoline-powered vehicles off the street every year.
Applied sciences equivalent to digital twins and accelerated computing are enabling producers to scale back emissions, improve power effectivity and meet the rising demand for environmentally aware manufacturing.
Siemens and NVIDIA are on the forefront of growing applied sciences that assist clients obtain their sustainability objectives and enhance manufacturing processes.
Key Challenges in Sustainable Manufacturing
Balancing sustainability with enterprise goals like profitability stays a high concern for producers. A examine by Ernst & Younger in 2022 discovered that digital twins can cut back building prices by as much as 35%, underscoring the shut hyperlink between useful resource consumption and building bills.
But, one of many largest challenges in driving sustainable manufacturing and lowering overhead is the presence of silos between departments, completely different crops inside the identical group and throughout manufacturing groups. These silos come up from a wide range of points, together with conflicting priorities and incentives, a scarcity of widespread energy-efficiency metrics and language, and the necessity for brand new expertise and options to bridge these gaps.
Information administration additionally presents a hurdle, with many producers struggling to show huge quantities of information into actionable insights — notably these that may affect sustainability objectives.
In line with a case examine by The Producer, 1 / 4 of respondents surveyed acknowledged that their information shortcomings negatively affect power effectivity and environmental sustainability, with practically a 3rd reporting that information is siloed to native use instances.
Addressing these challenges requires modern approaches that break down obstacles and use information to drive sustainability. Performing as a central hub for data, digital twin expertise is proving to be a necessary software on this effort.
The Function of Digital Twins in Sustainable Manufacturing
Industrial-scale digital twins constructed on the NVIDIA Omniverse improvement platform and Common Scene Description (OpenUSD) are reworking how producers method sustainability and scalability.
These applied sciences energy digital twins that take engineering information from varied sources and contextualize it as it will seem in the true world. This breaks down data silos and affords a holistic view that may be shared throughout groups — from engineering to gross sales and advertising and marketing.
This enhanced visibility allows engineers and designers to simulate and optimize product designs, facility layouts, power use and manufacturing processes earlier than bodily manufacturing begins. That enables for deeper insights and collaboration by serving to stakeholders make extra knowledgeable choices to enhance effectivity and cut back pricey errors and last-minute adjustments that may end up in vital waste.
To additional rework how merchandise and experiences are designed and manufactured, Siemens is integrating NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud utility programming interfaces into its Siemens Xcelerator platform, beginning with Teamcenter X, its cloud-based product lifecycle administration software program.
These integrations allow Siemens to carry the ability of photorealistic visualization to advanced engineering information and workflows, permitting firms to create physics-based digital twins that assist eradicate workflow waste and errors.
Siemens and NVIDIA have demonstrated how firms like HD Hyundai, a pacesetter in sustainable ship manufacturing, are utilizing these new capabilities to visualise and work together with advanced engineering information at new ranges of scale and constancy.
HD Hyundai is unifying and visualizing advanced engineering tasks instantly inside Teamcenter X.
Physics-based digital twins are additionally being utilized to check and validate robotics and bodily AI earlier than they’re deployed into real-world manufacturing amenities.
Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics producer, has launched a digital plant that pushes the boundaries of commercial automation. Foxconn’s digital twin platform, constructed on Omniverse and NVIDIA Isaac, replicates a brand new manufacturing unit within the Guadalajara, Mexico, electronics hub to permit engineers to optimize processes and prepare robots for environment friendly manufacturing of NVIDIA Blackwell methods.
By simulating the manufacturing unit atmosphere, engineers can decide the very best placement for heavy robotic arms, optimize motion and maximize protected operations whereas strategically positioning hundreds of sensors and video cameras to watch the whole manufacturing course of.
Using digital twins, like these in Foxconn’s digital manufacturing unit, is turning into more and more widespread in industrial settings for simulation and testing.
Foxconn’s chairman, Younger Liu, highlighted how the digital twin will result in enhanced automation and effectivity, leading to vital financial savings in time, value and power. The corporate expects to extend manufacturing effectivity whereas lowering power consumption by over 30% yearly.
By connecting information from Siemens Xcelerator software program to its platform constructed on NVIDIA Omniverse and OpenUSD, the digital plant permits Foxconn to design and prepare robots in a sensible, simulated atmosphere, revolutionizing its method to automation and sustainable manufacturing.
Making Each Watt Rely
One consideration for industries all over the place is how the rising demand for AI is outpacing the adoption of renewable power. This implies enterprise leaders, notably manufacturing plant and information middle operators, should maximize power effectivity and guarantee each watt is utilized successfully to steadiness decarbonization efforts alongside AI progress.
The most effective and easiest technique of optimizing power use is to speed up each doable workload.
Utilizing accelerated computing platforms that combine each GPUs and CPUs, producers can considerably improve computational effectivity.
GPUs, particularly designed for dealing with advanced calculations, can outperform conventional CPU-only methods in AI duties. These methods might be as much as 20x extra power environment friendly with regards to AI inference and coaching.
This leap in effectivity has fueled substantial positive aspects over the previous decade, enabling AI to handle extra advanced challenges whereas sustaining energy-efficient operations.
Constructing on these advances, companies can additional cut back their environmental affect by adopting key power administration methods. These embrace implementing power demand administration and effectivity measures, scaling battery storage for short-duration energy outages, securing renewable power sources for baseload electrical energy, utilizing renewable fuels for backup era and exploring modern concepts like warmth reuse.
Be a part of the Siemens and NVIDIA session on the 7X24 Trade 2024 Fall Convention to find how digital twins and AI are driving sustainable options throughout information facilities.
The Way forward for Sustainable Manufacturing: Industrial Digitalization
The subsequent frontier in manufacturing is the convergence of the digital and bodily worlds in what is named industrial digitalization, or the “industrial metaverse.” Right here, digital twins develop into much more immersive and interactive, permitting producers to make data-driven choices quicker than ever.
“We’ll revolutionize how merchandise and experiences are designed, manufactured and serviced,” stated Roland Busch, president and CEO of Siemens AG. “On the trail to the commercial metaverse, this subsequent era of commercial software program allows clients to expertise merchandise as they’d in the true world: in context, in beautiful realism and — sooner or later — work together with them by pure language enter.”
Main the Method With Digital Twins and Sustainable Computing
Siemens and NVIDIA’s collaboration showcases the ability of digital twins and accelerated computing for lowering the environmental affect brought on by the manufacturing business yearly. By leveraging superior simulations, AI insights and real-time information, producers can cut back waste and improve power effectivity on their path to decarbonization.
Be taught extra about how Siemens and NVIDIA are accelerating sustainable manufacturing.
Examine NVIDIA’s sustainable computing efforts and take a look at the energy-efficiency calculator to find potential power and emissions financial savings.
