There are some recent concepts that actually build beyond the idea of digital twins. In fact motive being motivated from the idea of digital twins where we kind of create a digital replica of a product of the process. So extending this idea, there are some new concepts that take this beyond to connect the various other functions in manufacturing. And one of these concepts is called digital threads. And you may come across digital thread being used in some of the industry context, in presentations or in discussions in the future of manufacturing. Well, let's understand, what is digital thread in manufacturing. Digital thread is an attempt to kind of build a seamless integration across various functions in manufacturing organizations, right? We can talk about manufacturers as a business, then there's so many different functions. And manufacturing is just one of the piece that they do. There is vendor management, there is quality, there is, engineering, and finance side of it. And we actually contribute to designing the products. So it's the the logistics and operations to kind of deliver the product or get the inbound, the supplier, into the manufacturing operations. So all these sub systems or sub functions, they actually connect to the, contribute to making the entire manufacturing operation happen end-to-end. And when if you can think about digital thread is something like, it's a concept that tried to close the loop, close the gap across these different functions. And do a seamless integration so that you have a common data model that actually kind of allows the exchange of information and if possible. Like, you can think in terms of providing a digital view of how these are connected so that you have transparency and actually you are moving towards creating what I would call as a single source of truth. Because often in manufacturing organization, what happens is each of these, sub functions that we talk about, whether it is a product management, whether it is engineering, whether it is manufacturing or finance or vendor management. They often, the processes that actually run these functions that are often, implemented in multiple systems, multiple software built over time. Hence they actually often become what I call a siloed pieces and that silo and and the lack of connectivity, create a lot of friction in smoothly operating a manufacturing process, right? For efficiency and quality. And so digital thread is an attempt to kind of bring us all together. In fact, recent, survey from PTC shows that claims digital thread, as a nascent technology concept that will be continued to disrupt all industries. And they predict that this market of digital thread applications, connecting these different functions in manufacturing actually will grow up to almost $2.5 billion almost Less than 500 million right now. It is supposed to expand five times in the next 4-5 years. And on the right hand side of the chart from the survey, you can see that they also find that manufacturing industries are kind of lagging behind. In terms of how they are adopting digital thread with some other industries like automotive technology industries are labeled ahead. So hence it is an opportunity. I think we may see these initiatives around digital thread connecting the different functions in manufacturing. More popular in manufacturing in the coming years. The digital thread, how's it implemented basically in order to create this seamless view the integration has to start with understanding the different software. And systems and tools that actually run these operations like some of the enterprise systems like your enterprise resources planning ERP software. Your customer relationship management CRM software, computer aided design CAD software that captures the design information, product, lifecycle management software. that captures the information about the entire R and D process of developing a new product, all the different phases. It's all captured in that software. And of course we talked about IOT and digital twins platform and software. So now ERP, for example, brings all the finance information, and the HR information, in terms of the talent that is deployed in various operations, all those information there. Now think about connecting all these things seamlessly, right through, and making the data model kind of common in a way that they can talk to each other. To build this one layer above for you to see a digital version of how the manufacturing plant is operating, how the manufacturing businesses operating. So just to give an example, so if you go back to the electric motor that you can kind of the electric motor examples. If you're, if you're a manufacturer kind of manufacturing and selling electric motors to customers, you have the ability to kind of track the motor, a customer promise, right. Directly or through kind of a sales and three CRM kind of software coming into your digital twins application, really live information of how the customer is using. And the different parts of the digital twin being captured in CAD-CAM systems and how that CAD-CAM. Software is capturing the digital information about the design of the parts and then in the PLM system where exactly how many prototypes run? How many tests were run for that spindle that is used in the motor so that if you have a problem you can go and connect on that and see and then of course directly connected to the ERP. In terms of what was the cost of manufacturing that particular part? What additional cost went into it to take some steps or is there any changes happen? What is the efficiency of the process at that point in time where this was manufactured and also who are the people who worked on it? So you get an idea how you can capture the entire all the operations. The information about that in one platform to what would call it the digital thread of the entire manufacturing operations. That actually summarizes what this concept of digital thread is about. It is not going to be easy to implement because it is always a challenge to integrate all these systems. But that's an attempt that some of the companies are into right now to create that one single source of truth to aid effective management of manufacturing operations. And of course build business value for all the stakeholders, stake stakeholders and manufacturing.
