AWS IoT TwinMaker: AWS’s Solution for Simplifying Digital Twins Construction

AWS announced at the company’s re:Invent conference on November 30 the release of AWS Internet of Things (IoT) TwinMaker, a solution that helps manufacturers and industrial firms reduce the time needed to create digital replicas of their machines, production lines, or entire facilities.

The potential for digital twins is resonating with firms. The aim of AWS IoT TwinMaker is to help companies avoid getting bogged down in tasks such as extracting and making sense of data from disparate assets.

A digital twin not only is a virtual representation of a machine or production line but also is a dynamic tool that can receive real-time data to help firms monitor the current condition of their machines, perform predictive maintenance, or optimize their production lines. For example, developers can combine video feeds and historic information to develop a digital twin that alerts operators not only about anomolies but also if a threshold has been breached so that companies can avoid unplanned downtime or safety hazards.

AWS IoT TwinMaker can collect and integrate data from sensors in equipment, video cameras, connected devices, and business applications. The next step is to create a digital model of the asset by defining the relationships between the data sources and then to integrate them, forming a digital twin graph. The digital twin graph is an interactive 3D view of the physical environment that combines virtual representation and connected data sources. Further, there is a plugin for Amazon Managed Grafana, a dashboard and visualization platform, to enhance the presentation of results.To encourage firms to test AWS IoT TwinMaker, there are no up-front commitments or fees, with customers only being charged for the AWS services used.

AWS IoT TwinMaker includes connectors to other AWS servcies, such as AWS IoT SiteWise for collecting equipment and time-series sensor data, Amazon Kinesis Video Streams for collecting video data, and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) for storage of visual resources such as computer-aided design files. In addition, there are connectors to other firms’ solutions, including Snowflake and Siemens’s MindSphere.

AWS also highlighted another use case for AWS IoT TwinMaker: supporting deskless workers. AWS IoT Twinmaker can support deskless workers by consolidating different data sets into a single pane. One project already under way at INVISTA—a manufacturer of fiber, resins, and chemical intermediates and part of Koch Industries—is using AWS IoT TwinMaker to provide field personnel with operational notifications and alerts and improving productivity and efficiency in field operations and in health and safety.

Digital twins are evolving from a niche to a critical tool for manfacturers and industrial firms to manage and optimize their operations. Condition-based monitoring will remain a prevalent use case, with ABI Research predicting that, by 2026, approximately 35% of all new condition-based monitoring connections will feed digital twins, supporting more than 10 million frontline workers in manufacturing.

Customers will value the potential benefits of creating digital twins. System integrators will appreciate the simplification of the process of extracting, connecting, and mapping data with solutions like AWS IoT TwinMaker, and this will boost adoption. ABI Research forecasts that the industrial digital twin market will grow rapidly from US$3.5 billion in 2021 to US$33.9 billion in 2030 at a 29% compound annual growth rate (see Industrial Digital Twins: What’s New and What’s Next, AN-5478).

Manufacturers and industrial firms want solutions that can be deployed quickly to help them solve business and operational challenges. ABI Research expects that digital twin marketplaces will eventually accelerate the implementation of digital twins. AWS continues to make its presence felt in the industrial domain with 200 services encompassing compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, media, and now private 5G (see IN-6373). However, partnerships with industrial automation suppliers—notably Siemens—are important in achieving these ends (for expertise in simulation software and low-code development tools, see Industrial Simulation Software, CA-1317); however, there is also a growing roster of companies that offer complete digital twin solutions on their own, including Dassault Systèmes, Hitachi Vantara, PTC, and Siemens. AN-5478 provides an in-depth review of the market for suppliers looking to deliver digital twins. AWS and its hyperscaler peers are walking a fine line of being a partner versus a competitor the farther into manufacturing they go.