What is a digital triplet?
In the field of manufacturing DX, data utilization is often limited to departmental or divisional levels, and does not extend to company-wide decision-making or optimization of revenue structures. Against this backdrop, the concept of "digital triplets" proposed by Professor Yasushi Umeda of the University of Tokyo Graduate School is attracting attention.
A digital triplet refers to a framework that adds a third element—the perspective of "how people will use it" or the "world of intellectual activity"—to a digital twin, which links the manufacturing site (physical) with digital data (cyber).
Rather than simply being an extension of operational efficiency improvements or IT implementation, this concept is attracting attention as a way to re-examine the way decision-making and value creation are carried out throughout an organization, centering on "human intelligence" such as judgments and ingenuity that have been made on the ground.
Why Japanese companies, in particular, need digital triplets.
To understand why digital triplets are effective for Japanese manufacturing, two perspectives—the "vertical axis" and the "horizontal axis"—are important.
The horizontal axis refers to the ability to manage the entire business process, from development to manufacturing, sales, and service, based on customer value standards. Western companies have been pioneers in strengthening this horizontal axis. They have established high operational efficiency and competitiveness by connecting customers, design, and production with data and creating feedback loops through top-down approaches and IT systems. However, on the other hand, it has become clear that the approach to strengthening the horizontal axis tends to lead to standardization and uniformity, making it difficult to create unique competitiveness for individual companies. Currently, Western companies that have strengthened the horizontal axis are also beginning to shift towards strengthening the vertical axis.
The vertical axis refers to the depth of expertise and skills in each department and process. This typically includes the experiential knowledge and on-the-ground ingenuity accumulated over many years in the manufacturing process, which cannot be acquired overnight. This is a challenge for Western companies.
On the other hand, Japanese companies possess a wealth of tacit knowledge in the challenging areas along the vertical axis. Assuming progress is being made in strengthening the horizontal axis, the next stage—"the advantage in high quality and service areas generated by vertical axis knowledge"—is the core of differentiation for Japanese manufacturing.
The digital triplet is a concept for maintaining and developing the tacit knowledge on the vertical axis in a reusable form. Many people are resistant to DX because they fear that standardization on the horizontal axis will "actually weaken their company's competitiveness." However, the digital triplet offers the perspective that efficiency on the horizontal axis and uniqueness on the vertical axis can coexist. This concept has the power to support organizational consensus building for promoting DX.
Industrial data strategy proposed by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
The concept of digital triplets is also deeply related to the Industrial Data Strategy promoted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The Industrial Data Strategy advocates for building new competitiveness based on data collaboration between companies and industries, not just on the use of data within companies.
Traditional IT implementations primarily aimed at improving operational efficiency within companies. However, in today's increasingly competitive manufacturing environment, optimizing operations within a single company is no longer sufficient to maintain a competitive advantage. This is where the use of data across the entire supply chain becomes crucial.
To advance the use of data in this way, an approach that integrates on-site observations, data, and human judgment is considered crucial.
By linking these three elements, a feedback loop is created through digital technology that transforms human knowledge into a competitive advantage, making it possible to more practically promote DX in the manufacturing industry.
Human space (world of intellectual activity)
And a key characteristic of digital triplets is the "world of human intellectual activity." This refers to the realm of human knowledge, such as the experience, know-how, and judgment skills possessed by skilled workers and production engineers on the factory floor.
By organizing tacit knowledge, which previously relied on individual experience, into explicit knowledge and linking it with data, it becomes possible to accumulate it as an intellectual asset for the entire organization.
Professor Umeda places particular emphasis on the "differences" that arise between the work of experts and general staff. Many practitioners say that by analyzing their work with Professor Umeda's advice, they were able to extract knowledge that they had never been able to articulate before. Visualizing and analyzing the reasons and trends behind how the same task is performed by different people is at the heart of digital triplet implementation. These differences are not obstacles to standardization, but rather the source of added value that Japanese manufacturing sites have accumulated over many years. The most important step in implementing digital triplets is to extract these differences as explicit knowledge and build a system that can be used throughout the entire organization.
Specifically, the starting point for implementing digital triplets is to organize things in three directions: ① automate things that can be repeatedly standardized, ② create logic for things with conditional branching, and ③ refine things that are difficult to standardize as a collaborative area or change the system.
Cyberspace (data infrastructure)
Cyberspace serves as a data infrastructure for accumulating and analyzing data acquired from the field. By comprehensively managing production results, equipment status, quality data, and other information, and by performing simulations and predictive analysis, it supports the advancement of production activities.
Physical space (actual manufacturing and logistics activities)
The physical space refers to the actual manufacturing site, including factory equipment, products, logistics, and work processes. IoT sensors and various systems acquire data such as equipment operation and quality information, allowing for a digital understanding of the site's condition.
What is the difference between a digital triplet and a digital twin?
To understand digital triplets, it's necessary to clarify the difference between them and digital twins.
Professor Umeda, who proposed the concept of digital triplets, explains the background as follows: Although the spread of digital twins has advanced data collection and visualization in manufacturing sites, many companies have reported that "data is not being used effectively to solve problems and improve processes that occur on the factory floor." The root cause of this is that "human intelligence," which is the primary driver of data utilization, has remained outside the system.
Digital twins are a technology that recreates physical objects such as equipment and factories in a digital space, enabling condition monitoring and simulation. They play a significant role in advancing manufacturing processes, including equipment maintenance and quality improvement.
On the other hand, the digital triplet is an evolution of this two-layer structure, adding a "world of intellectual activity (people)" to create a three-layer structure. The most essential difference is that it not only collects and analyzes data, but also incorporates "human intelligence"—the ability to extract value from that data—into the system.
Based on this three-tiered structure, we first formalize the tacit knowledge of skilled workers on the factory floor, continuously evolving improvements within the factory. The wisdom cultivated there then spreads to interdepartmental collaboration, resulting in a spiral of optimization across the entire supply chain and business. The digital triplet is not merely a step towards improving the factory floor, but an extremely powerful approach to evolving the entire business.
Why are digital triplets important in manufacturing DX?
Historically, many manufacturing companies have maintained their competitiveness by refining each area, such as production, design, sales, and marketing, and strengthening expertise at the departmental level. However, in recent years, due to intensifying market fluctuations and increasing complexity of supply chains, it has become difficult to maintain the overall competitiveness of a company through departmental efforts alone.
Optimization across multiple processes, including manufacturing, logistics, sales, and service, has become essential. Against this backdrop of changing circumstances, data-driven integration of the entire supply chain has become a crucial theme.
We are now in an era where profit maximization cannot be achieved through partial optimization.
Increasing factory utilization rates is a crucial challenge for manufacturing companies. However, production activities that are not aligned with demand increase inventory risk.
For example, if production is increased without adequate demand forecasting, capital efficiency may deteriorate due to increased inventory. Conversely, even if demand surges, the inability to flexibly change production plans will result in missed sales opportunities.
Supply chain disruptions are hindering digital transformation.
One of the reasons why digital transformation (DX) is not progressing as expected in many companies is the disconnect between data and business operations.
When systems are built separately for each department, such as manufacturing, logistics, and sales, the data held by each department is often not interconnected. Furthermore, data sharing between companies is limited, making it difficult to grasp the overall situation of the supply chain in many cases.
However, it's important to be aware of the risk of making "resolving data fragmentation" the sole objective. While system integration and data integration between departments require significant effort and investment, investing without a clear narrative of "who needs the data, when, and for what decision" is unlikely to yield results. Furthermore, the required systems and investment scale vary greatly depending on the level of accuracy and granularity of data integration desired.
The key is to first extract the "human knowledge" that is implicitly accumulated by individuals, clarify who is looking at what, when, and how they are making decisions, and identify the information that is causing bottlenecks due to a lack of data connectivity. Then, design a trial of the new business process and determine the scope of the necessary data integration—this order is the key to preventing DX from ending as just a localized improvement.
Data integration linked to human intelligence will determine competitive advantage.
In the future of manufacturing, the level of data integration is expected to significantly impact a company's competitiveness.
Improved demand forecasting accuracy allows production plans to be adjusted to match demand. Maintaining appropriate inventory levels also leads to improved cash flow.
Furthermore, by visualizing the entire supply chain, management can quickly grasp changes in the situation. Companies that can flexibly adjust their strategies in response to changes in the market environment are more likely to establish a competitive advantage.
Specific changes brought about by digital triplets
Digital triplets go beyond simply integrating data; they bring about significant changes to corporate decision-making processes. This article will explore the impact they have on the manufacturing industry.
Dynamic optimization of inventory and supply and demand
Inventory and supply-demand planning is a task that relies heavily on tacit knowledge, truly a "modern-day artisan's domain." In this area, where skilled personnel have adjusted the supply-demand balance based on years of experience and intuition, attempts to revamp core systems or introduce AI have repeatedly failed to improve performance compared to existing methods, resulting in a situation where "the old ways cannot be changed." The root cause of this lies in the fact that human judgment processes—tacit knowledge—remain outside the system.
When approaching this challenge with the digital triplet approach, the most important thing is to formalize and codify the decision-making criteria and thought processes that skilled personnel use when adjusting supply and demand. However, this logic is constantly updated in response to changes in demand trends and market conditions, and it is not something that can be created once and then forgotten. Therefore, rather than integrating it into a large, complex core system, it is important to build it as a mechanism that can be expanded and updated agilely, separate from the core system. By incorporating "human knowledge" into the system and continuously refining it, data utilization can be realized, leading to the reduction of excess inventory and stockouts, and a fundamental improvement in the company's capital efficiency and profitability.
Sophistication and flexibility of production planning
In a rapidly changing market environment, the flexibility of production planning is crucial to a company's competitiveness. However, attempting to represent the operating status of each factory, logistics conditions, demand trends, and the knowledge of skilled workers all within a single, massive core system creates a dilemma: the system becomes obsolete as soon as it is built. Because the environment and human knowledge are constantly changing, a monolithic system simply cannot keep up.
The concept of digital triplets highlights the importance of rethinking the very structure of the system. Specifically, it is effective to design the system in three layers: ① the data source layer, ② the standard process layer (the part handled by the core system), and ③ the layer that systematizes human knowledge. In particular, by separating layer ③ from the core system and building it as a mechanism that can be expanded and updated agilely, it becomes possible to flexibly follow market changes and changes in on-site knowledge. The key to breaking away from reliance on individual skills and leveling the proficiency level across the entire organization is to incorporate the tacit knowledge of "what criteria experts use to adjust production plans and inventory when market fluctuations occur" into the system as logic, and to have a system in place that can continuously update that logic.
Improving the effectiveness of AI utilization
AI-powered demand forecasting and optimization analysis are already being adopted by many companies. However, it is difficult to fully realize the benefits of AI when data is fragmented.
By establishing an integrated data infrastructure through digital triplets, AI can perform more accurate predictions and analyses. Furthermore, it enables advanced analytics that allow for decision-making by comparing multiple scenarios.
Real-time visualization at the management level
Being able to simultaneously grasp on-site data and market data will change the speed of decision-making by management.
Having an environment that allows for integrated monitoring of production status, inventory levels, and market trends enables rapid strategic revisions and investment decisions. The ability to implement data-driven management is another major value of digital triplets.
Practical steps toward realization
The implementation of a digital triplet can be carried out in stages using the following three steps, which involve translating the "differences" from the field into the system.
Automation of routine tasks
Simple, repetitive tasks that don't involve inconsistent judgment will be automated by the system. The goal is not efficiency itself, but to create the space for people to focus on more complex "judgments" and "improvements."
The "logicalization" of the tacit knowledge of experts.
In business processes involving conditional branching, we unravel the criteria used by experienced professionals to select and judge information. We formalize the tacit knowledge held within individuals into a process and logic, then integrate it into the system. This is the core of digital triplet implementation.
Creating a "co-creation area" for know-how that is difficult to standardize.
We define highly specialized areas that cannot be standardized as our core strengths (sources of added value). Instead of forcing systematization, we either refine them as areas of "collaboration between people and technology" or revise the system itself.
The digital triplet is a very powerful concept, but many companies stumble when it comes to implementing it in their own operations. This is because, since it deals with "human intelligence," a systematic approach involving not only the IT department but also business divisions and management is essential. That's why Macnica supports the realization of the digital triplet by utilizing the "5P" best practice, which is based on Siemens'DX methodology.
| People (Human Resources) |
This literally describes the type of talent needed to execute agile projects that integrate business and IT. |
|---|---|
| Portfolio (portfolio) |
This involves listing and prioritizing ideas about what to do and why (what applications to develop to achieve). |
| Process (process) |
The process involves business processes, development processes, and governance mechanisms to ensure that ideas considered in the portfolio are rapidly released and updated as they are used. |
| Platform (Platform) |
This is an IT infrastructure for creating new services and for coordinating between the business division and the IT division to execute those plans. |
| * (Promotion) |
This involves timely external and internal communication and awareness campaigns to maintain team motivation and change mindsets and culture. |
The "5Ps" consist of five elements: People (the necessary personnel and team composition), Portfolio (prioritizing what to start with), Process (the business and development process for rapidly releasing and updating ideas), Platform (the IT infrastructure that connects business and IT departments), and Promotion (internal and external communication for cultural transformation). Each element is interdependent, and transformation cannot be sustained if even one is missing. It is important to design with all five elements in mind from the small-scale start stage.
Accelerating DX in manufacturing by adopting digital triplets
The Digital Triplet is a concept that integrates the human space, cyber space, and physical space, linking manufacturing activities with the market environment to optimize the entire company. By viewing data, the field, and people as a unified whole, it is attracting attention as a foundation for rebuilding company-wide consensus and creating a state where people and organizations can continuously generate value.
Macnica provides comprehensive data utilization support for manufacturing DX, from conceptualization and data infrastructure construction to AI implementation. If you are interested in realizing a data strategy, including digital triplets, please contact Macnica.