The Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA) officially launches its activities on March 2. The IDTA was launched by 23 founding members from the electrical industry, mechanical engineering, the software sector and user industries with the participation and initiative of the industry associations VDMA and ZVEI.

Implementing a digital twin with open source

The IDTA sees itself as a user organization with an international focus for the digital twin in Industry 4.0. Dr. Matthias Bölke from Schneider Electric and CEO of the IDTA: "Today is the starting point for the management of the digital twin technology in industry. The aim is to optimally develop the digital twin as the core technology of Industry 4.0 to market maturity and to do so in a cross-manufacturer approach. Together and interdisciplinary with many partners." To this end, the IDTA is driving forward open source projects to implement the digital twin. According to Karsten Schneider from Siemens and IDTA board member, open source has the advantage of advancing developments quickly. Small and medium-sized companies without in-house software development in particular benefit from the open code.

The digital twin is becoming an increasingly important topic in industry, across its entire range of applications and sectors. It is the basis for applications along the entire life cycle and is the interface between physical industrial products and the digital world. The character of the digital twin is also crucial. It stands for the new, open and standardized interoperability component in Industry 4.0, which is associated with efficiency and opportunities for new digital value creation.

"AI and cloud services of the future are based on the concept of the digital twin and machine learning is also becoming widely implementable. This is associated with our future potential for new business models, both for small and medium-sized factory equipment suppliers and for large end users, for example in the automotive and process industries," explains Dr. Horst Heinol-Heikkinen, owner of Asentics and Deputy Chairman of the IDTA Executive Board.

The concept of the asset administration shell as a basis

"In recent years, Europe has achieved a leading international position with its Industry 4.0 initiatives. This lead must be exploited and expanded, and the digital twin plays a central role in this," emphasizes Karsten Schneider from Siemens and member of the IDTA Executive Board.

His development is not starting from scratch, but is based on the concept of the Asset Administration Shell. This was launched six years ago and is now being operationalized with the IDTA. The IDTA takes the administration shell from a prototype to an open technology solution. Well-known companies involved right from the start The relevance of the digital twin for the industry is also evident from the founding members of the IDTA. Well-known companies come together here: ABB, Asentics, Bitkom, Bosch, Bosch Rexroth, Danfoss, Endress+Hauser, Festo, Homag, KUKA, Lenze, Pepperl+Fuchs, Phoenix Contact, SAP, Schneider Electric, Schunk, Siemens, Trumpf, Turck, Volkswagen and Wittenstein.