How Can a Digital Twin Support Product Development?

In what ways can a digital twin be utilized in device design, product development, and business optimization? Answers to this question were explored from multiple perspectives—both research and industry—at the DigiTwin project demo day on January 18, 2019.

As one of the partner companies in Aalto University’s DigiTwin project, Remion also participated in the demo day, presenting a digital twin developed for Framery’s phone booth.

“A digital twin provides new insights into how phone booths are used, the user experience, and how people behave inside the booths. Product development teams can analyze this data and use it to further improve the phone booths,” says Miika Okko, Senior Solution Architect at Remion and developer of the Framery digital twin.

The digital twin has been under development for approximately one and a half years, with two phone booths involved in the demo phase. Data is collected on factors such as booth ventilation and lighting, usage rate, as well as user posture, activities, and overall user experience.

“The end user receives access to a comprehensive tool that allows each user to easily obtain exactly the information they need,” Okko explains.

Creating Commercial Opportunities Together with the Customer

The digital twin of Framery’s phone booth has generated tremendous interest. At the DigiTwin demo day, the presentation sparked several audience questions about commercialization possibilities, such as whether phone booth users could access data about their own usage.

“At this stage, Framery’s digital twin serves as an experimental platform that enables our customer to better understand what happens inside the booth through the collected data. After that, it is up to them to decide how to utilize the information and whether to build new business models around it,” says Remion’s CEO, Jukka Kivimäki.