Mercedes Designing Digital Twins of its Factories

Mercedes-Benz has announced plans to create digital twins of its factories, in a partnership with Nvidia to streamline production efficiencies at its manufacturing and assembly facilities. 

The automaker will use Nvidia Omniverse, a development platform for building and operating “custom 3D pipelines” and industrial metaverse applications, to create virtual copies of its car factories. These digital versions will allow Mercedes to test and fine-tune designs before sending them to production, enabling significant cost and time savings. 

The digital twin tech will first be implemented at Mercedes manufacturing facilities in Rastatt, Germany; Kecskemét, Hungary; and Beijing, China, with plans to roll it out across its 30 factories worldwide.  

“Using Nvidia Omniverse and AI, Mercedes-Benz is building a connected, digital-first approach to optimize its manufacturing processes, ultimately reducing construction time and production costs,” said Rev Lebaredian, vice president of Nvidia Omniverse.

Mercedes-Benz previously partnered with Nvidia to develop software-defined vehicles, designed with intelligent driving capabilities tested and validated in the Nvidia Drive Sim platform, which is also built on Omniverse.

Mercedes also said its next-generation vehicles will feature its operating system MB.OS, which will be standard across its vehicle portfolio and deliver “premium software capabilities and experiences.”.

Related:Nvidia Announces Digital Twin Tech for Automotive Industry

“Mercedes-Benz is initiating a new era of automotive manufacturing thanks to the integration of artificial intelligence, MB.OS and the digital twin based on NVIDIA Omniverse into the MO360 ecosystem,” said Jörg Burzer, Mercedes-Benz Group board member. “With our new ‘Digital First’ approach, we unlock efficiency potential even before the launch of our MMA models in our global production network and can accelerate the ramp-up significantly.”