“The Metaverse enables real-time control that makes industrial operations more agile and increases production and supply chain quality,” said Jose Vicente de los Mozos, Executive Vice President, Group Industry, and Group Country Head, Iberia, at Renault. (Image: Renault)
An industrial metaverse aims to help Renault scale the next phase of digital transformation. The group divides its virtual space into four different dimensions: mass data acquisition, digital twinning of processes, networking of the ecosystem supply chain and other technologies.
“The industrial metaverse makes it possible to activate previously invisible efficiency potential for the benefit of people and the environmentexplains Patrice Haettel, Vice President, Industrial Strategy and Engineering. “For example, the management of data at group level allows us to monitor in detail the energy consumption of all our industrial and non-industrial sites and to optimize it in real time.”
To bundle the data from all production locations, the OEM has developed its own platform for data collection and standardization. This feeds the industrial metaverse and thus forms the basis for interaction with the production processes in real time. The solution was developed together with partner ATOS under the name ID@Scale also offered to other industrial players.
The automaker’s 8,500 production lines are already fully networked, and all supply chain data is hosted in the Metaverse. All physical Renault branches have a digital twin in the virtual world. Like manufacturing facilities, the supply chain is an integral part of the industrial metaverse and is managed in real time. The goal is integration into an extensive ecosystem in which the digital twins are enriched with supplier data, sales forecasts, quality information, but also with weather and traffic information and artificial intelligence. Cloud, 3D and big data technologies, among others, make digital change possible.
The technologies used in Industry 4.0 since 2016 mainly serve to reduce costs – the carmaker has been able to save 780 million euros so far. In addition, the virtual replica of the physical world reduces delivery times and the ecological footprint. The metaverse also gives the manufacturer a better overview of the working environment, allowing all stakeholders to make decisions more flexibly and autonomously.