The 3,750 annual labor hours saved at Kia's (000270.KS) Gwangmyeong EVO Plant demonstrates that digital twins can serve as a cornerstone of manufacturing innovation. Beyond Kia, major domestic manufacturers in the semiconductor and steel sectors are successively adopting digital twin technology. Digital twins are establishing themselves as essential tools for manufacturing innovation alongside artificial intelligence and robotics. The manufacturing industry expects that workflow design utilizing real-time data synchronization and virtual predictive simulation will achieve efficiency improvements across entire processes.
According to industry sources on Sunday, major Korean manufacturers are successively introducing and applying digital twins in anticipation of revolutionary improvements in work efficiency. The two pillars enabling work optimization are real-time data synchronization and simulation. Real-time data linkage between actual equipment and virtual space eliminates spatial constraints for workers. This enhances the quality of remote collaboration in workplace management and control tasks. Furthermore, simulation is a core function that promotes efficiency improvement through preemptive measures. Companies can predict outcomes of environmental changes by modifying the placement of objects and equipment in virtual space. Thanks to simulation, companies now have methods to review multiple scenarios within virtual space and devise optimized workflow designs.
The digital twin integrated control system at Kia's Gwangmyeong EVO Plant is a case focused on real-time data synchronization. Kia and Hyundai AutoEver (307950.KS) introduced "black box" and WebRTC (real-time communication) technologies at the Gwangmyeong EVO Plant. The black box is a type of digital recording system. When anomalies occur in the factory environment, the actual environmental data is reported to the computer virtual environment in real-time synchronization. Factory workers can check these black box records to identify the exact timing of problems and the precise malfunctioning parts. Just as one reviews recorded footage from a vehicle black box to determine the cause of a traffic accident, workers examine digital twin records as video to diagnose the causes of malfunctions.
WebRTC refers to technology that enables viewing digital twin control systems, including the black box, in a web environment. Typically, using industrial digital twin programs required computers directly connected to high-specification graphics processing unit (GPU) servers. In contrast, WebRTC implemented the digital twin program in a web environment. A multi-access system was established allowing the use of digital twin programs on various devices including smartphones and tablet PCs. This created a work environment where workers in distant locations can collaborate while sharing the same virtual space data.
The black box and WebRTC immediately impacted work efficiency improvements. They reduced the time required for equipment malfunction reporting, anomaly identification, and troubleshooting. In particular, the manpower and time deployed for initial response after malfunctions decreased dramatically. According to Hyundai Motor (005380.KS) Group data, previously four workers needed to spend approximately 30 minutes just to identify anomalies. Calculated in man-hours, a labor measurement unit, this amounted to 120 man-minutes of input. In contrast, at Kia's EVO Plant, one worker can complete anomaly identification in 10 minutes. Comparing the man-hours invested, this represents a reduction from 120 minutes to 10 minutes.
Beyond Kia, there are cases actively utilizing simulation functions. Hyundai Steel (004020.KS) is building a digital twin control system with Hyundai AutoEver to respond to gas leak accidents at cold-rolling plants. The company is developing a platform that manages workers, equipment, and workplaces on a single virtual space platform to promote safety. This platform will include features for real-time analysis of data from gas detection sensors placed throughout the workplace in virtual space and tracking the origin of accidents when hazardous gas leaks occur. A gas diffusion path simulation function in the digital twin is also under development, which will assist decision-making necessary for preventing secondary accidents.
Additionally, semiconductor manufacturers Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK hynix (000660.KS) are partnering with Nvidia to pursue digital twin innovation. Samsung Electronics is using Nvidia's digital twin platform "Omniverse" to detect real-time anomalies in semiconductor production equipment in virtual space and optimize production schedules. SK hynix is also creating an Omniverse-based virtual semiconductor factory to simulate production flows and material movement.
The digital twin adoption boom is expected to accelerate competition among companies to secure data. Digital twin experts cite securing ground truth data from sites and reliable golden data sets as prerequisites for manufacturing innovation. The work of attaching small computers to business sites to collect process data and extracting high-quality data from this collection is becoming increasingly important.
"Ultimately, the reason for using digital twins is to find correct answers in simulation predictions," said the CEO of a digital twin platform development company. "Securing the most refined data from the field is an essential process to obtain simulation results close to the correct answer."
