Industrial Metaverse: The Latest Game-Changer for Businesses?
Most of the traditional use cases of Industry 4.0, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, big data, etc., have matured in the industrial sector. As Industry 4.0 enters its next phase, the industrial metaverse is already transforming how people design, manufacture, and interact with physical entities by converging the real and digital worlds. Put simply, it is a virtual space that simulates real-world industrial environments and systems and enables us to control, communicate, and interact with them. Though the consumer metaverse may be more popular and hyped, the industry remains at the centre of metaverse commercialization. It has the potential to completely transform multiple business activities, from product design and manufacturing to supply chain management, customer interaction, and worker training.
Why the Industrial Metaverse Matters Now
Delving deeper into the building blocks of the industrial metaverse will prove why it is more relevant now than ever. With the advancement in supporting technologies and increased digitalization, the industrial metaverse is not far off, and many companies are already implementing metaverse-related use cases.
The industrial metaverse is not an idea that was discovered recently. It is something that has been discussed and worked upon for many years, and with the evolution of digital infrastructure and the metaverse’s building blocks, it is closer to us than ever.
This article will examine the various use cases of the industrial metaverse and its related technologies that are being explored by companies in different sectors. It will also cover the application of the industrial metaverse for building smarter, faster factories, as in the case of Siemens Electronics Factory Erlangen, Germany, which uses the Industrial Metaverse, Digital Twins, and AI for state-of-the-art production methods.
Building blocks of the Industrial Metaverse and Digital Twins
A lot of building blocks and multiple supporting technologies are required to implement the industrial metaverse and its use cases in the truest sense. Digital twin is perhaps the foremost one, and it is already shaping the foundation of the industrial metaverse. It is a virtual replica of real-world objects and environments that is interlinked with real-world data sources about the physical object to provide a highly detailed, accurate simulation.
However, digital twins are much more complex and have greater applications when compared to simulations which are typically used for designing and prototyping. In addition, digital twins enable one to interact and get real-time updates of the physical entity, allowing for monitoring, analysis, and prediction of its behaviour and performance. In an effort to curb flash flooding, Singapore developed a digital twin of their country, which combines aerial imagery with street-level data to provide decision-makers with a detailed 3D representation to improve urban planning and design.
McKinsey’s analysis indicates the global market for digital-twin technology will grow about 60 percent annually, reaching $73.5 billion by 2027. Ultimately, the industrial metaverse would be a cluster of interconnected digital twins simulating potentially everything—from tangible assets to business processes, supply chains, and even people!
Smart Factories: Transforming the Shop Floor
Such applications of the industrial metaverse are making smart factories a reality, where the shop floor is transformed into a network of locally optimizing, self-organizing decision-making agents. In the smart factory, people, machines, and other resources communicate with each other like a social network. This would support mass customization, and products could be personalized, allowing flexible and agile responses by businesses to meet the needs of modern customers.
Siemens, for instance, used digital twin technology to plan and simulate the construction of a 73,000-square-meter factory in Nanjing, China. It was able to test and validate the facility’s performance and efficiency before laying even a single brick by combining factory data, production line data, performance data, and building information. The digital twin is now used to optimize factory output. The new factory boasts productivity up to 20% higher than conventional factories, manufacturing volume flexibility up to 30% higher, and space efficiency up to 40% higher.
Industrial Metaverse and Consumer Metaverse
The industrial metaverse is a space that will enable richer collaborations with colleagues in different locations and remote interactions with machinery and environments. When compared to the consumer metaverse, the industrial metaverse has greater dynamism as it operates on a much more complex, collaborative level that is in sync with real-world settings. The industrial metaverse is predicted to reach $100 billion in global revenues by 2030, surpassing the combined value of the consumer metaverse ($50 billion) and the enterprise metaverse ($30 billion).
Global Revenue Projections for Consumer and Industrial Metaverse (2021–2030)
Use Cases of the Industrial Metaverse
The industrial metaverse has extensive applications in the industrial manufacturing, automobile, healthcare, and energy sectors, in addition to others. It has numerous use cases in various business processes, from product design and manufacturing to supply chain management, customer interaction, and worker training.
Improved Product Design and Development
It enhances product design and development using digital twins, AR, and VR by promoting greater collaboration and real-time insights into the virtual prototype. It leads to more extensive product testing, helping to build better, more resilient designs without wasting any physical resources. The World Economic Forum reports 70% lower design costs and a 78% detection of planning mistakes due to virtual simulations and analytics, saving budget and time.
Advanced R&D and Prototyping
Volvo is tapping Metaverse technology to facilitate collaboration among R&D teams across the organization, aimed at improving the prototyping and development of new cars. Airbus is using mixed reality (MR) to design passenger cabins, thereby improving the speed of R&D by 80%. They are also using AR to provide information to operators on the manufacturing floor. BMW Group is using NVIDIA Omniverse to architect virtual factories for production optimization (like its virtual Debrecen EV plant). These innovations are projected to result in 30% savings by reducing changes required, improving flexibility and precision, leading to more efficient planning processes. It allows businesses to explore the outcomes of different strategies and layouts virtually across an ecosystem before they are even implemented in real settings.
A 2023 Industrial Metaverse Study by Deloitte and MLC showed that 92% of US manufacturing executives claim to be experimenting with metaverse use cases, with each exploring as many as six use cases on average.
Predictive Maintenance and Continuous Monitoring
The industrial metaverse, through its various tools, would also allow businesses to carry out predictive maintenance of assets, visualize their workplaces better, optimize factories and production activities, provide remote support for repairs and maintenance work, etc. Rolls-Royce’s Intelligent Engine Platform, which uses digital twins and AI to monitor the performance of their airline engines and chart maintenance schedules based on predictive maintenance, uses insights pulled from advanced data analysis.
Supply Chain Visualization and Optimization
The industrial metaverse can produce a supply chain digital twin that would enable real-time visualization and proper optimization of supply chains, which are getting increasingly complex today. “We are exploring the usage of the metaverse across our services, including simulations of warehousing and terminal operations, container and vessel repair inspections, safety training, and other commercial uses,” said Bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO of DP World, at the first Dubai Metaverse Assembly.
Remote Training with AR/VR
The industrial metaverse can be effectively used to train remote workers using AR/VR. This is especially useful for businesses in today’s tight labour markets with a huge talent gap. Saudi Aramco, in partnership with PaleBlue, developed immersive learning for their employees, simulating inspection processes and electrical and chemical field maintenance using VR.
Better Customer Interaction and Sales Experience
There is a great scope for businesses to offer personalized customer interaction and sales channels on a larger scale by leveraging metaverse technologies. An article published in Harvard Business Review shows that 48% of retailers are ready to implement AR in their shopping experience, as 56% of consumers indicate that AR gives them more confidence about the quality of a product. The FIAT Metaverse Store is the world’s first metaverse-powered interactive showroom, developed in collaboration with Touchcast and Microsoft. The technology launched by FIAT is the first of its kind to power an end-to-end sales experience in the metaverse, revolutionizing the brand’s entire customer experience.
The Role of the Metaverse in Sustainable Manufacturing
Industrial metaverse and sustainable solutions processes go hand in hand as they help simulate and anticipate real-life outcomes without the need for physical implementation. This helps cut down waste, save energy, and reduce environmental impact during product design and planning. For example, Siemens uses its Xcelerator platform to model and improve energy use in factories, lowering their carbon footprint by identifying inefficiencies before production is started. The digital twin technology helps manufacturers save resources and meet sustainability goals by enabling the virtual testing of production methods.
Nvidia Omniverse, Siemens Xcelerator, PTC Vuforia, and Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE are some leading players focusing on providing industrial metaverse-based solutions.
The given chart gives an overview of how manufacturers are adopting metaverse technologies across key areas such as production, talent, supply chain and customer engagement. It highlights both implementation and experimentation rates based on Deloitte and MLC’s Industrial Metaverse Study conducted in September 2023.
The industrial metaverse is still in its early stages, with its underlying technologies like IT/OT integration, AR, VR, AI, distributed ledger technology (i.e., blockchain), 5G, digital twins, cloud, and edge computing, etc. getting more advanced day by day. This still requires significant progress in the existing digital infrastructure. It is crucial to ensure interoperability for a seamless industrial metaverse with real-time collaboration.
The given chart shows the development levels of various core metaverse technologies, highlighting which technologies are in the maturity stage and the ones suitable for investment.
Strategic Outlook for Businesses
The industrial metaverse is no longer just a buzzword or a future trend. It is expected to steadily evolve and become a necessity for businesses to stay competitive and continue to generate value in the long-term.
Early adopters are already gaining a competitive edge by improving productivity, reducing costs, accelerating innovation, and making operations more advanced and sustainable. It allows businesses to test ideas virtually, make smarter decisions using data-driven insights, and build more flexible, resilient systems.
Several leading companies across sectors—from automotive and manufacturing to energy and healthcare—have already started implementing metaverse technologies across a range of use cases. Businesses with the resources to explore this shift should not hold back.
As the underlying technologies continue to evolve and converge, businesses should not just wait for further developments to start exploring the industrial metaverse. The most effective approach is to start small by piloting specific use cases, building digital capabilities within teams, and investing in collaborative platforms.
As industries grow more dynamic and face increasing disruptions on both the demand and supply sides, businesses should implement industrial metaverse applications to become more adaptive, agile, innovative, and future-ready. Companies that take early action and seize opportunities are more likely to adopt the industrial metaverse more effectively and leverage its full potential to stay ahead of the curve.
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