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Digital Twin

The Digital Twin: Where the Virtual Meets the Physical

August 27, 2021

At the heart of the Siemens Xcelerator Portfolio of engineering software lies in the Digital Twin. The highly accurate closed-loop digital twin is where the virtual meets the physical world. Because of the accuracy of the virtual model, design, simulation, and production engineers can make decisions with confidence.

A digital representation of a physical object, process, or service, a digital twin is a virtual replica of an object in the physical world. Created as early as the definition and design stage of a planned product, the true digital twin is not an option, but a necessity. It allows engineers to simulate and validate product properties depending on the respective requirements. With advancements in machine learning, virtual simulations and digital models have become the standard in modern engineering to power innovation.

Digital twins reduce the time and cost to develop products, and drive more efficient manufacturing and production. They also increase end-product performance and predictability, which reduces customer operating cost.

Comprehensive Digital Twins fall into three types:

  • Digital Twin of the Product — Product Design & Simulation
  • Digital Twin of Production — from machines to entire production lines in the virtual environment
  • Digital Twin of Performance — Generating a closed-loop for continuous optimization

Each one of these twins builds upon and feeds data back to the other versions of itself. Siemens Digital Industries Software has invested heavily into the digital twin, and it is the thread that connects product life cycles, from design to simulation to production.

The vision of Siemens: the Xcelerator Portfolio

As the complexity of products and processes become more and more complex, investing in digital transformation will allow organizations to stay competitive in the age of innovation. The Siemens Digital Industries Xcelerator Portfolio of software was created with a vision of end-to-end connectivity with a digital thread winding throughout, based on an integrated digital twin strategy.

The Siemens comprehensive digital twin represents a digital twin of design, simulation, and analysis and is part of an open ecosystem connecting tools from multiple vendors. Allowing for virtual testing and a “fly before you build” approach”, this process reduces cost and schedule impacts, and limits the risk to test programs.


Applied CAx is a proud provider of the Siemens Digital Industries Xcelerator Portfolio. If you’d like more information on how we can help your company find the right software solutions to your challenges, please contact us.

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