AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog
Unlocking the Full Potential of Manufacturing Capabilities Through Digital Twins on AWS
By Harjot Kalra, Sr. Solutions Architect – AWS
By Ravi Avula, Sr. Solutions Architect – AWS
By Sylvia Feng, Global Director Digital Automation Consulting – Belden Inc.
By Paul Park, Marketing Director – Matterport
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| Matterport |
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Enterprises face a constant challenge to maintain profitability and remain competitive while improving operational efficiency. In the manufacturing industry, digital twin technology is transforming the way companies approach problem solving and performance optimization.
A digital twin is a virtual representation of an object or system that spans its entire lifecycle. It’s updated with real-time data and utilizes simulation, machine learning (ML), and reasoning to aid in informed decision-making.
By creating an immersive, photo-realistic 3D model of a physical space, for example, operations managers can gain insights into how their manufacturing operations function, how they can be improved, and how they can be optimized for better performance.
By augmenting the manufacturing space with connectable sensors, digital twins can be “brought to life” through integration with sensor data. This allows for simulations and creative thinking in terms of innovations and solutions.
With the help of digital twin technology, operations managers can confidently improve operational efficiencies, identify and address issues effectively, retain tribal knowledge of the manufacturing infrastructure, and continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
In this post, we will explore the collaboration between Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Matterport to create a digital twin proof of concept (POC) for Belden Inc. at one of its major manufacturing facilities in Richmond, Indiana. The purpose of this digital twin POC was to gain insights and optimize operations in employee training, asset performance monitoring, and remote asset inspection at one of its assembly lines.
Matterport is an AWS Partner and AWS Marketplace Seller that’s leading the digital transformation of the built world. Its groundbreaking spatial data platform turns buildings into data to make nearly every space more valuable and accessible.
AWS Integrator for Matterport Digital Twins
Manufacturing is becoming increasingly digitized, leaving today’s operations managers searching for ways to maximize efficiency in their plants and stay ahead of the curve.
The integration of Matterport digital twins and AWS IoT TwinMaker allows you to reimagine your production line using real-time data visualizations, giving you the power to access crucial performance metrics while optimizing processes with speed and accuracy.
AWS IoT TwinMaker makes it easier for developers to create digital twins of real-world systems such as buildings, factories, industrial equipment, and production lines. It provides the tools you need to build digital twins to help you optimize building operations, increase production output, and improve equipment performance.
By combining Matterport digital twins with targeted analytics gleaned from deployments throughout all levels of your plant’s machinery, operations managers are able to identify and execute on potential improvements that unlock new levels of productivity.
Through this integration, developers can contextualize data from diverse sources with real-world information, creating a comprehensive digital twin that offers unparalleled spatial data insights—all in considerably less time and at a reduced cost than traditional methods.
Figure 1 – Matterport integration with AWS IoT TwinMaker.
Unlocking Innovation and Achieving Success with AWS
Belden Inc. is a global leader in the design, manufacturing, and distribution of networking, connectivity, and cable products. Founded in 1902, Belden has grown to become a trusted provider of high-quality network and data solutions for a wide range of industries, including industrial automation, broadcast, transportation, and data centers.
With a focus on innovation, Belden develops new technologies and solutions to meet the evolving needs of its customers. Belden operates globally, with a presence in over 100 countries and manufacturing facilities strategically located around the world. Through its extensive network of partners and distributors, Belden delivers its products and services to customers worldwide.
Let’s take a deeper look at the overall solution by walking through the major steps in the POC deployment:
Plant Tour and Collaboration
The journey began with the AWS and Matterport teams visiting Belden’s plant to gain a comprehensive understanding of factory operations. This tour provided invaluable insights into the manufacturing processes, workflow, and challenges faced by the factory. The collaboration between AWS, Matterport, and Belden proved instrumental in combining expertise and leveraging each team’s respective strengths to identify potential areas for improvement.
Digital Space Capture
The onsite capture process required no more than an hour to capture a significant portion of the plant operation. Using the industry-leading Matterport 3D Pro3 capture camera system, we captured high-resolution imagery with high-fidelity measurement information to digitally recreate the entire plant environment.
It’s worth noting that a manufacturing site of significant size, such as this one spanning 750,000 square feet, would typically require approximately a week to complete the scanning and creation process for the Matterport digital twin experience. Additionally, Matterport capture services can be utilized to contract out the process of capturing large spaces.
Following the plant tour, the teams came together for a discovery workshop and Belden shared a remarkable development: the previous deployment of sensors on four extruder assembly lines. These sensors enabled real-time data collection, monitoring, and analysis of the equipment’s performance.
The use of MQTT protocol to natively connect and send equipment data to AWS IoT Core further streamlined the process. MQTT, an efficient and lightweight messaging protocol designed for Internet of Things (IoT) applications, ensured seamless communication with minimal latency. This integration allowed for quick access to critical equipment data, facilitating informed decision making and enabling proactive maintenance measures.
Data Ingestion
Throughout the plant, sensors were strategically deployed to collect essential operational data that was previously missing. These sensors were responsible for monitoring various aspects of machine performance, availability, and health status, including indicators such as vibration, temperature, current, and power. Subsequently, the gathered operational data was transmitted through Belden’s zero-trust operational technology network to Belden Horizon Data Operations (BHDO).
BHDO serves as a dependable edge-deployed application that offers a straightforward, seamless, secure, and reliable means of connection to operational systems. It also possesses the capability to ingest data into AWS IoT Core using the MQTT protocol.
With Belden Horizon’s edge orchestration capabilities, users gain the ability to effortlessly deploy and manage edge applications across multiple devices simultaneously. Belden’s Secure Remote Access (SRA) technology ensures the establishment of virtual private network (VPN)-based cellular or wired connectivity.
Asset Modelling
Ingested data in AWS IoT Core is streamed to AWS IoT SiteWise using AWS IoT Core rules. AWS IoT SiteWise is a managed service that helps customers collect, store, structure, organize and monitor data from their industrial equipment at scale.
Customers often need to bring their historical equipment measurement data from existing systems such as data historians and time series databases into AWS IoT SiteWise for ensuring data continuity, training artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning models that can predict equipment failures and derive actionable insights.
Visualizing and Interacting with the Digital Twin
Amazon Managed Grafana was used to integrate various components and construct visualization dashboards. It’s a fully managed service based on open-source Grafana that makes it easier for customers to visualize and analyze operational data at scale.
Amazon Managed Grafana is integrated with AWS data sources that collect operational data, including AWS IoT SiteWise as well as Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon OpenSearch Service, AWS X-Ray, Amazon Timestream, and Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus.
The following reference and links provide more detailed information regarding the above mentioned AWS services, the Matterport and AWS IoT TwinMaker integration, as well as for Grafana:
- Set up and create an Amazon Managed Grafana workspace. Alternately, there’s the option to host a self-managed Grafana instance on your own infrastructure and integrate it with the AWS IoT TwinMaker plugin available from the Grafana public catalog. Next, set up self-managed Grafana hosted on your own infrastructure.
- Open the Amazon Managed Grafana console, choose the name of the workspace, and sign in with AWS IAM Identity Center. Then, enter the email address and password.
- Follow guidelines in the Amazon Managed Grafana user guide to set up user permissions and IAM policies for Grafana to access AWS IoT SiteWise, AWS IoT TwinMaker.
- Add AWS IoT SiteWise and AWS IoT TwinMaker as a data source.
- Integrate AWS IoT TwinMaker with Matterport to enable the importing of Matterport digital twins into your AWS IoT TwinMaker scenes. This pairing allowed for the visualization and monitoring of the Richmond plant digital twin.
Figure 2 – Sample dashboard digital twin integrated with AWS IoT TwinMaker
Conclusion
The digital twin proof of concept for Belden’s Richmond manufacturing plant has showcased the immense potential and value that digital twin technology brings to the manufacturing industry. The key use cases of asset performance monitoring and employee training have already demonstrated their effectiveness in improving operational efficiency and enhancing workforce skills.
Looking ahead, Belden has exciting plans to expand its digital twin implementation with advanced use cases, like predictive maintenance to further optimize asset performance by leveraging data analytics, and machine learning algorithms to anticipate equipment failures and schedule maintenance activities proactively.
Furthermore, optimizing scheduling based on real-time data and insights from the digital twin will enhance production planning and resource allocation, leading to increased operational efficiency and cost savings. The team also aims to leverage the digital twin’s capabilities to improve quality control processes, enabling early detection of defects and deviations from specifications, ultimately resulting in higher product quality and customer satisfaction.
The Belden team’s focus on predictive maintenance, improved overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), optimized scheduling, and enhanced quality control reflects a strategic approach towards leveraging the full potential of digital twins in transforming the manufacturing processes and driving operational excellence.
Learn more about Matterport in AWS Marketplace.
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Matterport – AWS Partner Spotlight
Matterport is an AWS Partner that’s leading the digital transformation of the built world. Its groundbreaking spatial data platform turns buildings into data to make nearly every space more valuable and accessible.