Autor: Tassilo Söldner

Digital twins connect physical and digital systems, furthering efficiency, enabling predictive maintenance, and allowing the production of more customized products. Despite these advantages, challenges such as high costs, data synchronization, and security risks hinder widespread adoption. This article explores the potential of digital twins and examines key barriers to integration and implementation, also considering some industrial applications including additive manufacturing as a relevant use case.

With a world population of ten billion people by the middle of the 21st century, natural resources must be used sustainably to prevent environmental disasters and wars. Traditional concepts such as recycling alone are no longer sufficient. Instead, we must think in terms of material cycles and transform the traditional production economy into a circular economy. To achieve this, a close link between production and recycling must be established, which is hardly conceivable without digitalization. This article begins with an overview of steps of industrial development towards more sustainability, finally showing how the digital transformation can facilitate the realization of a circular economy.