Industry 4.0 might still be a hot topic in the manufacturing and engineering landscape, but Industry 5.0 is already hot on its heels. Where Industry 4.0 brought smart technologies, such as cloud connectivity, real-time data analysis, and AI into the landscape, Industry 5.0 marks a new revolution.
The next stage of the industrial revolution is all about augmenting digital transformation with an enhanced collaboration between humans and machines or systems. It embraces digital advancements to enhance human creativity and collaboration, while helping businesses to innovate faster, more sustainably, and more cost-effectively than ever before.
At the heart of this revolution are the significant advances being made in digital twin technologies, virtual commissioning software, and extended reality. All these solutions are working together to enable a new, brighter future for industrial teams.
Virtualware is at the forefront of this shift, offering two groundbreaking platforms—VIROO and SIMUMATIK—that together redefine what’s possible in digital transformation. While each platform is powerful on its own, their integration creates an unparalleled solution that positions Virtualware as a leader in the Industry 5.0 revolution.
The Rise of Industry 5.0: Uniting Humans and Machines
As modern businesses face increasing levels of competition, alongside evolving consumer demands, Industry 5.0 is emerging as a solution that aims to bridge the gaps between human innovation and mechanical efficiency.
Where industry 4.0 introduced groundbreaking efficiency improvements, Industry 5.0 builds on the benefits of machines with more collaboration between humans and technology. Value-driven and human-centric initiatives are being overlaid on top of Industry 4.0 transformations, to pave the way for greater levels of customization, sustainability, and speed.
While AI-powered robots and machine learning capabilities will play a significant role in this new landscape, perhaps the most significant benefits of Industry 5.0 will stem from the evolution of digital twin technologies, extended reality systems, and virtual commissioning solutions.
Virtualware’s VIROO and SIMUMATIK embody this vision. Together, they provide a platform that empowers teams to interact with and refine complex systems in a virtual space before they’re deployed in the real world. This integration ensures that human insight and creativity are central to the process, enabling businesses to innovate faster, more sustainably, and with greater precision.
The Evolution of Digital Twins and Emulation
Digital twins have already paved the way to significant improvements in industrial processes, giving companies not just access to more advanced preventative maintenance strategies, but also more flexible prototyping systems that accelerate experimentation and development, while reducing costs.
Digital twins are minimizing the wear and tear on real-world systems, improving the learning and development of human users, and reducing operational risk. In Industry 5.0, these twins are becoming more flexible and accessible, aligning with a growing ethos of sustainable production, and aligned virtual and traditional technologies.
For instance, SIMUMATIK’s emulation tool provides users with more ways to experiment with digital twins than ever before. Unlike previous “simulation” solutions for digital twin testing, emulation models are allowing for more realistic insights into system performance, testing and minimizing potential risks.
The Rise of Virtual Commissioning
Virtual commissioning, builds on emulation in the digital twin landscape, allowing for comprehensive testing of systems before they’re implemented in the physical world. Traditionally, system commissioning required on-site testing, which could be costly, time-consuming, and high-risk. Virtual commissioning changes this by enabling engineers to validate and optimize systems in a virtual space, simulating real-world environments and conditions.
SIMUMATIK’s virtual commissioning solution gives companies a way to quickly and pre-emptively validate and verify their projects. Companies can catch potential errors and inefficiencies earlier in the design process, reducing the risk of costly mistakes.
Additionally, it creates opportunities for hands-on collaboration between engineers, designers, and operators, who can now explore and refine the production process together. This human-centric approach not only enhances the overall quality of the system but also reduces stress and pressure on engineers, who can confidently validate projects in a controlled, virtual environment.
The Transformation of Collaborative XR Experiences
Experiential tools like extended reality systems are helping businesses to achieve more with their digital twins, emulations and virtual simulations at scale. With virtual reality, teams can collaborate, built prototypes, and test systems in a virtual space, without the need for physical resources.
This reduces strain on existing systems, improves sustainable production, and minimizes the expenses associated with innovation in the industrial landscape. For instance, the ready-to-run XR solution VIROO, from Virtualware is empowering companies to create and customize digital twins at exceptional scale, while also opening the door to cross-functional collaboration in product design, development, and testing with multi-user XR sessions.
Covering the entire Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) cycle, from concept and design to development and launch, VIROO supports the complete business process. Its integration with SIMUMATIK workspaces allows teams from any environment to interact in extended reality (XR), experiment with advanced 3D models, and share ideas through integrated voice chat. The bi-directional integration ensures seamless synchronization between actions in extended reality and digital twin designs, enhancing operational efficiency.
Building Industry 5.0 With VIROO and SIMUMATIK
Industry 5.0 requires tools that support collaboration, innovation, and seamless integration across physical and digital domains. VIROO’s ready-to-run XR solution, constantly updated with the latest advancements in XR, gives teams access to an ever-flexible and agile environment where they can test systems, learn, grow, and develop at speed.
The VIROO integration with SIMUMATIK enables businesses to collaborate effectively in extended reality (XR), facilitating innovative digital twin experimentation and advanced technical emulations. This technology is paving the way to the future of Industry 5.0, where companies can combine the benefits of human creativity and collaboration, with cutting-edge technology.
With solutions like this, the future of Industry 5.0 will pave the way to:
- Enhanced collaboration: Digital twins and extended reality will enhance the collaborative experiences between teams from all over the industrial landscape, allowing for faster development processes, and greater innovation
- Human-centered design: The ability to interact with Digital Twins in 1:1 scale using XR will allow companies to validate their solutions design in initial stages. Topics like ergonomics and maintainability could be addressed earlier in the projects. In addition, companies will be able to consider and plan the physiological impact for operators that work collaborative environments with robots and machines
- Sustainability: With virtual commissioning solutions and digital twins, businesses will be able to develop solutions for the modern world at speed, experiment with materials, and create prototypes, all without consuming excess energy and resources
- Cost savings: With virtual versions of machines and systems, and the ability to collaborate form anywhere in XR, teams will be able to minimize operational costs, and resource expenses. They will also be able to cut down on waste during prototyping and development
Most importantly, the new era of Industry 5.0, powered by cutting-edge digital twins, virtual commissioning, and XR will give the industrial landscape resilience and agility. It will ensure companies can react to disruptive changes faster and stay one step ahead of industry changes.
Stepping into the Future of Industry 5.0
The evolution of Industry 5.0 is a call for companies to prioritize human-centered design, creativity, collaboration, and sustainability alongside the digital transformations that drive the modern world.
What sets Virtualware apart is its ability to deliver an integrated solution that outperforms competitors. Many companies offer digital twin or XR platforms, but few, if any, provide the seamless integration. The real-time bi-directional updates, scalability, and user-friendly design of Virtualware’s platforms (VIROO & Simumatik) ensure that teams can work more effectively and efficiently than ever before.
VIROO and SIMUMATIK’s integrated solution answers this call, with an innovative way to align human talent and digital power, for a resilient, sustainable production landscape.
