Applying Digital Thread Across Manufacturing

US Department of Defense Definition: A digital thread is an extensible, configurable, multi-directional integration of authoritative technical data, software, and information throughout a product’s or system’s life cycle, enabling the capture of decision-making information and knowledge. A concise explanation is that the digital thread contains all the necessary information to build and update digital twins. …

Comparing Digital Thread and Production Process Management™

Digital Thread and Production Process Management™ are related concepts within manufacturing and product lifecycle management. Here is a comparison of the two:   Scope Digital Thread: The Digital Thread is a comprehensive concept that encompasses the end-to-end connectivity of digital information related to a product throughout its entire lifecycle. It includes not only the production processes …

What is a Digital Thread

Digital Thread refers to the connected flow of digital information throughout the entire lifecycle of a product, process, or system. It involves the seamless integration of data, information, and knowledge across various stages, from design and manufacturing to operation, maintenance, and even eventual decommissioning. The concept of a Digital Thread aims to provide a unified …

Digital Transformation and the Digital Thread

  Digital transformation concepts will drive improved performance for all manufacturing companies. A core ingredient of this transformation process is the Digital Thread that can collect and collate a set of information for a variety of users ranging from product designers to manufacturing management to accounting to compliance management, and customer research.  The problems behind …

The Manufacturing Digital Thread

In a previous blog I mentioned concepts including Smart Manufacturing, Manufacturing 4.0, and others that are driving manufacturing improvement toward a full digital transformation. One important segment of these efforts is something called the Digital Thread. Simply put, Digital Thread is the idea of capturing or delivering information in a digital form across the range …

Digital Transformation in Manufacturing?

Digital transformation in manufacturing is coming your way. So is Industry 4.0, Smart Manufacturing and the Internet of Things (IOT).  These often-overlapping concepts are all aimed at applying digital technology to enhance your ability to see and react more quickly to changing conditions within your company and across your value chain. Manufacturing enterprise information can …

BPM in Manufacturing

Business process management (BPM) in manufacturing is a fast growing way to support information driven tasks that form the base of your production events. Manufacturing enterprises have seen a substantial use of business process management applications but most have been in the area of administrative functions such as warranty management or ERP extensions. Very few …

Managing information through a layer architecture.

3level_illus Production Process Management information is managed through three layers. Using a layered approach in manufacturing enterprise information systems can provide significant advantages including ease of change and dramatically easier understanding of how production processes work. The Resource layer identifies the complete range of information sources or repositories. The business process layer retrieves the data …

The IIOT and Plant Operations

I fully get the idea of IIOT in the sense of historian or asset management (maintenance specifically) applications.  There is no question of the need for monitoring a lot of data in process industries and if you need to connect with all possible sensors on a machine tool, there could be some interesting applications.  My …