Last month, Xcelgo participated in an Industry 4.0 Hackathon in Austria and a Future Factory Workshop in the US – both with the goal of trying to solve industry challenges with Digital Twins.

Industry leaders and bright startup-minds were brought together for Industry Pioneers’ Industry 4.0 Hackathon in Linz, Austria. The goal was to create new solutions that unlocks the potential of new Industry 4.0 technologies and solves real-life industry challenges.

Xcelgo teamed up with TGW Logistics Group to complete one of the four categories at the hackathon – develop a Digital Twin of TGW’s PickCenter Revolution system. The team were provided with CAD data and machine feedback and were tasked to develop a dashboard, log file and an animated Digital Twin – all within just 48 hours.

As the challenge had to be based solely on web technologies, Experior could not be used to develop the Digital Twin. But the bright minds from Xcelgo and TGW figured out another solution.

The team created a browser-based application, that shows relevant log entries – such as errors etc. – in one section of the browser window, live video of the running system in two other sections and a live 3D model replicating the running system in a fourth section.

The combination of a 3D model, live video and relevant logs – all in sync with each other and the running system – makes it a very useful tool to monitor the system and replay errors.

The joint Xcelgo and TGW team placed second in the overall contest and received a well-deserved pat on the back from Managing Director of TGW Mechanics, Martin Rausch:

“The participants performed very well and achieved amazing results within just 48 hours,” he says and continues: “Congratulations to the TGW & Xcelgo team, Philipp, Markus, Petra, Michael and Jákup”.

All though Experior in its current version could not be used for this challenge, the new version of Experior that is under development would have met the requirements.

Experior 7.0 will include a headless mode that enables a live Experior model to be viewed in multiple different clients and platforms – e.g. a browser or a mobile device – and according to team member and Xcelgo developer Jákup Klein, Experior 7.0 would have made their solution even better:

“If we were able to use Experior 7.0 to create the 3D model, the Digital Twin would have been up and running much faster – making it a more flexible solution,” he says.

Factory Digital Twin project in the US

While Xcelgo’s developers were coding away in Austria, other Xcelgo employees were solving similar industry challenges on the other side of the Atlantic.

The Digital Manufacturing Design & Innovation Institute (DMDII) in Chicago, USA, hosted a workshop to identify the gaps hindering the implementation of Digital Twins in the American manufacturing industry. DMDII plans to launch a Factory Digital Twin project on the basis in the workshop results to fill these gaps and drive industry implementation.

To develop the project at the workshop, DMDII assembled a diverse team of industry leaders, university partners and digital twin experts. Xcelgo were invited because of our expertise in digital twin technology and experiences from the current efforts in the use of Factory Digital Twins.

“We were happy to be able to contribute to this project that we hope will speed up the implementation of Digital Twins in the American manufacturing industry, and we will gladly collaborate further with DMDII in the future,” says Xcelgo CEO Bent Aksel Jørgensen.

The workshop generated several high-value use cases and identified the challenges in finding a solution for the ideal output. DMDII are now analyzing the workshop results and scoping the Digital Twin project that they plan to launch in April 2019.